


Unification

by applecup



Series: Fragments of a Fallen Empire [5]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Awkward reunions, F/M, Light Side Sith Warrior, Mild canon divergence, but this time with actual character interaction, the real traitor is the friends we made along the way, war for iokath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 21:27:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12873375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecup/pseuds/applecup
Summary: Eirnhaya Illte-Quinn, unwilling figurehead of the Odessen Alliance, finds herself dragged into precisely the kind of conflict she loathes the most - war, between the Empire and the Republic. A confrontation on the mysterious world of Iokath forces her to confront her fading loyalty to the Empire she once called home, and her commitment to the man she once called a husband.





	1. Chapter 1

_Alright, Illte. You can do this. Breathe._

\- 

Returning to Iokath wasn’t her choice, truthfully; all Eirn wanted to do was sink back into obscurity, sidle on out of the spotlight that other people kept thrusting her into and let some other fool take on the galaxy and all its problems. Her hand kept being forced, though; dragged by those same other people, and the rest of her was too attached to her hand to do anything permanent about it. 

’ _I told you, I’m no assassin! I’ve come to deliver a message from the Republic-!’_

On any other day, in any other place, the Republic not-assassin’s qualities (her voice, her accent more specifically - it, and the sharp contrast it took to the content of her words) would have made her its focus, but Eirn’s attention was all on the other not-assassin (at least, she’d never known him as one - though she remembered, at that thought, the times he’d disappeared on missions of his own and come back, weeks later, with a spring in his step and another tale that he would refuse to tell any but the poorly encrypted personal logs that made their way to Baras). 

He was older, of course; not by much, but noticeably so - his hair a little thinner, a little more uniformly black in a way that spoke not of youth but dye and denial. _He_ was thinner; again, not by much, but his uniform hung a little less snugly - more room about the neck, a few millimetres at the most but very definitely there. His eyes, which half refused to look at her, were just as blue; his rank bars had altered, his ribbons changed, but it was very definitely- 

’…Malavai?’

When she spoke, she felt her voice crack; wonder if she had, and wish, simultaneously, that she hadn’t. All of the attention in the room, it felt, snapped to her - not just that she knew the not-assassin, but knew him intimately enough to call him by name (by _given_ name, under these circumstances)-

He looked at her, for a moment - _at_ her, as opposed to everything _but_ her, and then glanced away again (imperceptibly, almost, but he did so; his focus back on whatever was behind her, his aura far more ordered than she remembered it being and infinitely more impenetrable, at least in her current state). 

‘My lord.’ 

And that was all he had to say; all he said, greeting her in the politest and and most distant way possible. That hadn’t sunk in yet, though - that he’d afforded her the barest of civility, that he wasn’t even paying her attention, that- 

'I- what are- you doing here?’ she blurted out - not the most coherent or poetic of greetings, herself, but it cut right to the point and that- well, that had always been the closest thing she’d ever managed to a strength. 

His posture did not relax for a moment, though - his attention, while on her for only the briefest of split seconds, soon returned to whatever was occupying the space behind her. 'I am here representing the Empire, my lord. Empress Acina sends her best wishes, and desires to speak regarding an alliance-’ 

\- 

_I will find you_ , he’d said, _even if it kills me._

That had been what she’d been the most afraid of; that he (that what remained of him) was out there, somewhere, in some unmarked, unknown grave, that she had failed him one final time, that she might not ever even know what happened, in the end. 

But no, here he was. Alive, and looking right past her, and all he cared about was business. 

\- 

Acina, back on Dromund Kaas, had been Acina - and had not been, and Eirn hadn’t been sure what to make of the Sith Empress other than to remember the lust that the older Sith had once had (for power, for _her_ ) and the disconcertion that even then Eirn had felt knot itself at the base of her spine. Acina-now was different to the Acina-of-before; she wore heavy armour, not soft robes, and the Force pulsed through her in a way that had begun to rot her body from the inside out. Her skin was still smooth, her hair still shone, but her eyes glowed that same yellow-orange that always looked so sickeningly unnatural in humans (and it _was_ unnatural, for all the Sith - the human Sith, the Sith orthodoxy - claimed otherwise) and her breath, when she spoke, came out in cold puffs that only smelt of death and treachery. 

_How do you walk away from such power, Wrath?_

But that was why Eirn had vetoed the idea of allying with the Sith - to Lana’s irritation, and Theron’s bemused relief. None of the Zakuulans had understood the fuss and none of the Jedi had complained, and even many of the Sith who called Odessen home had not been sorry to learn that the Empire had failed to court the Alliance’s command structure. 

'You were once the Emperor’s Wrath. The strongest of our number. Join me, and you could be that once again.’ It was a practised speech - and one that, once, might have even worked. 

_You could serve me again, Wrath. You could kneel, and beg to be allowed to kneel._ Now, though, Eirn couldn’t help but snarl at that thought, even as the ice-cold knot in her stomach made her regret the morning’s attempt at a solid breakfast. 

And then there was Malavai, of course - ramrod straight, ever at attention and entirely avoidant of it settling on _her_. Acina, Eirn realised, wasn’t simply courting her again - hadn’t made excuses for them to be alone, hadn’t sent flowers or tried to bribe her with technology and weaponry, but had sent - had _tried_ to send - Malavai, who- 

(hadn’t even bothered to _try_ and contact her; hadn’t sent so much of a hint of any further message, after that one desperate plea into the void) 

-and that ice-cold knot thawed as it was overpowered with anger that Acina would (so brazenly attempt to manipulate her; that Malavai would go along with it, that _either_ of them might ever think she would ever crawl back to Dromund Kaas, after all they had done to her)- 

'Commander Malcom,’ Eirn heard herself say - her voice wavered, and she hated that waver more than anything, if only because of the judgements she immediately became afraid of, 'Tell your people here to expect me. We can discuss the details once I’m there.’ 

'Pathetic,’ Acina muttered - derision escaping out from between her teeth, an insult spat by lips that moments before had only said such honeyed words. Sith honeys, though, were invariably laced with poison, and Eirn no longer felt she had the constitution to enjoy them. 'Major,’ the Empress added, 'You have your orders-’ 

-and she was gone, and Quinn had made his empty apology before Eirn could even grasp her saber. 

\- 

When the dust cleared, Malavai - _Quinn_ \- was gone, of course; Eirn expected nothing else, and wondered how it was that she still managed to be disappointed. His loyalty to the Empire had always been unshakeable; she’d known even when she had some passing dedication to it of her own that, forced to choose between her and it, she wouldn’t have liked anything he had to say. That didn’t stop it hurting, though; to know that after they had shared so much, he loved that monstrosity more than he had ever loved her. That he’d graduated from Baras’s lackey, to the Wrath’s, to the Empress’s - and that he would, at that, sooner be the Empire’s lackey than any kind of master of his own fate. Acina had never seemed the type to send _him_ flowers, though Eirn knew that had never stopped Sith before - and indeed, Sith were more likely than others to make such gifts out of cynicism rather than any genuine desire. Still, she wouldn’t even have needed to - what had it been he’d once said, that had driven her so mad? _Service is its own reward_. Service, she’d tried to explain to him, doesn’t pay bills or put food on tables. Service cannot set you free. 

'Hey. You alright?’ Theron Shan - the son of a Jedi, a spy for the once-enemy, someone who Eirn had once found incredibly easy to hate - and he was more concerned than her once-husband. There was some unpleasant irony here, but Eirn knew if she dwelled on it she’d end up hurting someone she’d regret - or worse, _crying_. 

'I’ll be fine.’ Not that this was a lie that ever got easier to tell - not that anyone who knew her had ever begun to believe it, but Shan apparently had the sense to let it go, for now. 

'We need to rendez-vous with the Republic,’ Eirn added - a strange collection of words, even now, and she frowned a little distantly at the way they fit. 'The Empire won’t waste any time in hitting them.’ 

Lana was looking at her like _this-was-her-fault_ , though, and Eirn just glowered in return. If there was anyone to blame here, it was Acina - and, not for the first time, Eirn did not regret refusing the Empire’s _generous_ offer of allegiance in the slightest. The Empire did not enter into agreements of equals, not if it could avoid it, and Eirn knew Sith enough to know that while Acina might not ever technically betray the Alliance, she would put her own interests far above even mutual ones - even the _Empire’s_ ones. 

'Captain Dorne. I need you and your personnel to hold this location. Lord Beniko will be here to assist you.’ Eirn might not have wanted war, but it was, all the same, what she got; war, and the Republic. This was an idea that was going to take a lot of getting used to, and not for the first time, she wished that there was someone here who she could actually lean on; someone here that she could actually _trust_. 

'I expect,’ she added, quietly - only loud enough that Lana could hear it, as she passed the other Sith, 'Captain Dorne and her people to remain unharmed. The Republic are, for now, allies. Are we clear?’ 

Lana’s thin-lipped glare hardened ever further, at that, and for a moment, Eirn wondered if the other Sith wasn’t about to start something that they’d both regret. 

'I am capable of being professional, _Lord Illte_ ,’ Lana replied - her use of Eirn’s oldest title a deliberately displeased one, an eternal - for want of any other word - protest at Eirn’s refusal to be the Alliance’s figurehead. Lana was insulted, too - at the threat, at the implication she was anything _but_ professional, but Eirn found it impossible to not see the way that Force had rotted Lana’s body, too. 

'Good,’ Eirn replied - her own tone just as clipped, just as irritated. 'See that you are.’


	2. Chapter 2

They were late to the party, of course - between Iokath’s own defences and a few Imperials who had slipped behind enemy lines, the main event was in full swing by the time Eirn and Theron arrived. It was to their advantage, though - they caught the rear of an Imperial assault on the main Republic outpost, sandwiching them between a handful of mildly surprised troopers who seemed more concerned to see Eirn and Theron than relieved - and all the more so that they weren’t with the Imperials. 

‘You must be- Lord Illte,’ their commander managed - an alien, a Twi'lek man who glanced uncertainly between Eirn and Theron, as though he was trying to decide which one of them he distrusted more. 'Commander Malcom said to expect you.’ 

He left the _but we didn’t believe him_ part unsaid - that, and the _and we still think you’re here to stab us in the back_. Eirn let them stay unsaid, though; they were insults, yes, but not ones worth jeopardising the mission over. 

'That’s me,’ she just replied - acutely aware of her accent, in a room full of pubs, never mind her species. 'Where can I best assist?’ 

A very Jedi turn of phrase, and Eirn hated it even as she said it - not because she didn’t want to assist, but because of the judgements that even now she passed on herself for phrasing it quite like that. Even as a Sith, Eirn wasn’t certain how much difference she would make - there were plenty of Jedi backing up the Republic lines, and every single one of them shot her the same wary, judgemental look that spoke more of a barely restrained desire to gut her than any inclination towards cooperation. They had orders, though - and unlike Sith, seemed inclined to actually listen to them, even as Eirn had no desire to push her luck. 

There was one weapon she could wield that none of these Jedi could, though - the fact that she _was_ Sith, a role that she slipped into far too easily to be of comfort, first confusing and then terrifying the Imperials unlucky enough to get in her way, and sending them packing with what she just hoped wouldn’t be a desire to come back with stronger Sith of their own. This was not the first time in her life that Eirn had found herself fighting Imperials, though- it was the first time, she found herself reflecting, later, that she’d fought the _Empire_. 

_I guess this makes you a for-real traitor, Illte. There’s no coming back from this._

Not that this thought sat particularly well; if anything, it lodged in her throat, tasting of something acrid when she tried to swallow it and forcing a grimace that made her glad for the way her helmet kept her expression to herself.

\- 

Wars were never won in a day, though - not without unleashing the kind of atrocities that Eirn had come here to at least _attempt_ preventing, and even those that were had effects that lingered for centuries after. It didn’t feel like quite a century before the Imperial lines broke and the enemy - the Empire - folded, chased back to its boltholes here - but it was almost that, and she wasn’t sorry when the Republic push was finally satisfied. 

(Was certain, at that, that the Imperial push never would have been; satisfied, that is, not without Malcom’s head on a pike and Acina’s fingers on Iokath’s control panels. One more reason among thousands that she tried to tell herself that she’d made the right decision, nagging as her _what-if_ ever was) 

Eirn had mostly been attempting to avoid learning anything about Iokath during their previous visit, and mostly attempted to follow suit on her unwilling and involuntary return. It would seem, though, that she was being disappointed - and by the very same people whose inability to go five minutes without shooting at each other were the reason she was there at all. 

Iokath was home to many technological marvels - ones that Acina, Eirn couldn’t not bitterly reflect, would likely have coveted even were she _not_ the self-appointed Empress of all Sith. There was one purpose to Iokath’s existence, and one alone: war, and the eternal waging thereof. It made her think of her once-home, in all the worst possible ways; the realisations that had settled on her that it was all the Empire cared for - not for the Sith, in any senses of that word, not for those who’d died a thousand years ago or even those who, like her, were dragged unwillingly into its angry maw - but war, grim and bloody, death fuelling death, consuming the galaxy world by world until there was nothing left but ash. Vitiate’s own selfish ambitions hadn’t even needed to factor into it; war created power, created the demand for power, scared the population into compliance and the Sith into battle. And she- for all she might have privately protested, she was not any better herself; her hands were just as bloody, her pile of corpses just as high. She’d drawn strength from the wars she had been forced to wage, from the throats she’d claimed she’d had to cut, but- 

( _you could have left_ , she’d reflected, in Odessen’s air, _like Anya did_ ) 

-she was no less guilty than any other Sith. 

'Lord Illte. I have to ask.’ When Malcom looked at her during the debrief it was with the practised diplomatic calm of an enemy general come to parley with a volatile foe, and Eirn couldn’t help but simultaneously admire and resent him for it. 'Not that I’m ungrateful, but why the Republic? Why now?’ 

Inside her armoured gloves, Eirn struggled not to clench her fists, not least because of the threat that such an action would be read as. Malcom, for his part, was simply studying her - not visibly armoured, more fool him, but very definitely armed and Eirn knew better than to think that every Republic soldier in this place wouldn’t have gladly cut her down if she so much as breathed in a way he found a threat. 

'I know the Empress,’ Eirn replied, after a long moment. 'I know what she’s like. Not just as a Sith, but as a person.’ 

_How do you walk away from such power, Wrath?_

'Given the sort of power this place can unleash,’ she added, 'She’d burn the whole galaxy. I have no intention of letting that happen.’ 

Malcom, though, was not sated by this in the slightest - if anything, he was put more on his guard, though he seemed to have his aura and expression both well controlled. Then again, Eirn reflected, this probably wasn’t the first time he’d had to have a chat with a Force-sensitive he might have disagreed with - never mind a Sith. 

'And you? Do you intend to take this- superweapon?’ he replied - testing her limits, testing her further, and for a moment, Eirn wondered just what Republic Intelligence had told the man about her. 

'No,’ Eirn replied, incredibly flatly. She was the loudest voice on the Alliance’s council pushing for the dismantling of Zakuul’s so-called Eternal fleet, to Lana’s constant frustration - and Zakuul’s continued resistance. Senya wanted it repurposed for peacekeeping, and had talked enough Jedi around to the idea that decommissioning it altogether was out of the question, for now. It was a noble enough cause, but Eirn had seen her own Empire’s idea of _peacekeeping_ and wasn’t sure she trusted anyone with power once wielded by Vitiate, of all people. 

'I don’t intend to let the Republic take it,’ she added - abruptly, and entirely undiplomatically, but that was Lana’s fault for making _her_ out to be the one who gave out orders. 'Or,’ she continued, 'To take it for myself. The only way this ends is with that thing destroyed, along with anything else here with that kind of power.’ 

Malcom did not believe her, of course, but- in his place, Eirn had to wonder, would she? A once-enemy, once the handmaiden of a creature who had devoured whole worlds, claiming now to care even just the smallest amount about- if not galactic peace, then at the very least, a lack of planetary obliteration? 

'That won’t be easy,’ he replied, though - skipping over his faith in her statements entirely, and getting right to the part where he didn’t have to admit disagreeing with her stated goals. 'We’re talking about something that’s lasted for _millennia_.’ 

To that, though, Eirn just smiled. 'I am Sith,’ she replied - a reminder of what she was that made the atmosphere in the room twinge, even if most present had the professionalism to keep it out of their expressions. 'We are not known for giving up because something is not _easy_.’ 

Which, as usual, was precisely the issue. 

\- 

The Republic base camp apparently had enough of a routine that it could settle into, despite its recent establishment - proof, Eirn supposed, that even outside of the Alliance, Republic troops were far more disciplined than Malavai had ever given them credit for. Iokath was artificial enough a place that there was no day or night - just a constant daylight, like being in a space station large enough to have its own atmosphere. (It _was_ , or something close to it; the technical details went far enough over Eirn’s head to be considered in orbits of their own, but that seemed to be the general gist) 

The upshot, though, was that _evening_ was as much a fiction here as it was aboard a starship, despite the open sky, and a part of Eirn kept protesting that calling the meal they ate (a Republic-standard-issue-meal-substitute that Eirn half recognised from the fare of Alliance troops - pasta with a meat-and-vegetable sauce) an evening one was an unhelpful lie. It didn’t help that, other than Theron and a table full of awkward silence, she ate alone - avoiding equally awkward silence from Republic personnel and, once she could flee to a relatively quiet corner of the base, contact Lana in relative privacy. Not total; Eirn assumed she was being watched, and not simply by the Republic, but she saw no reason to make things easier for her watchers than she absolutely had to. 

’ _Lord Illte._ ’ Lana was as professional as ever, though Eirn could tell snide professionalism when she heard it. Presumably she was still sore about the earlier warning - or having been forced to work with Pubs, or both. For one of the Alliance’s founding architects, Lana had never warmed much to the idea of Jedi in its ranks who did not convert, or Pubs who talked with their own accent and wrote with their own script. 

'Lord Beniko,’ Eirn replied - she could play that game, too, and was petty enough that she would. 'What’s your status?’ 

Lana’s supposed humility had never done much to convince Eirn that it was anything else but another kind of vanity - another kind of mask, this one constructed of the faces of the crowd, instead of porcelain and bloody paint. She pretended that she was nobody important, and instead propped up others to be her public face, and others still to be her weapons. Eirn had no desire to be either - if only because she so despised being _used_. 

’ _The Alliance base is secure, and we’ve got our own troops on the ground. Captain Dorne and her people are headed your way. No casualties._ ’ She paused, and then, ’ _How are things on your end?_ ’ 

'Quiet,’ Eirn admitted; the Empire was licking its wounds, and the Republic was bracing itself for the next round. 'The Empire haven’t been giving you trouble?’ 

’ _Nothing we can’t handle. And I’m sure that Commander Malcom would prefer his people under his command._ ’ Lana was trying to foist something off on- someone else, here, and Eirn couldn’t quite tell what it was. Perhaps it was a simple mistrust of Dorne; or perhaps, at that, this was simple baseless paranoia. 

'Alright. Keep in touch,’ Eirn sighed, though - adding, 'Let me know if anything changes.’ 

’ _May the Force serve us well._ ’ Lana cut the call, at that - her usual farewell, a wordy well-wish that Eirn hated in every language but her own. 

_Qyâsik ben'yak grot._

(She checked her comm for missed calls, and found nothing; kept checking it, and kept finding only the kind of judgemental silence that made her feel like a fool for even thinking to take a look)


	3. Chapter 3

The following not-technically-a-morning, little seemed to have changed - for better or for worse. The Imperial lines were still holding - as were the Republic ones, as were the Alliance’s. Proof, Eirn supposed, that- even if they weren’t exactly evenly matched, there was all but a stalemate, and one that would not be broken without decisive action. 

Eirn had not slept, much - had meditated, or at least attempted to, though Iokath’s rhythms were simultaneously ordered and discordant in a way that even Nar Shaddaa had not been, and the presence of so many Jedi in such close quarters (not simply Jedi, but Jedi who opposed the Sith - as opposed, as it were, to Jedi willing to work alongside the same) did little for her ability to focus on anything but the desire she felt from them to plunge their lightsabers into her guts. Sleep had not come any easier; she wasn’t about to drug herself while in the middle of not-technically-enemy territory, and so she’d lain awake in a tented corner on an uncomfortable cot, trying to resist the urge to pace and scream and only barely succeeding. 

(She’d thought, guiltily, of Malavai; of his lack of any real reaction to her, and of her own sickened feeling of betrayal. He’d claimed to act against her, once, but it had been a flimsy act, desperation and insecurity creating a sucking vortex that could still have drowned them both, but this was something quite apart from that. He had sworn he would do everything, and then done nothing; even when her face was on  bounty notices from one end of the galaxy to the other, he’d remained silent and distant. The contacts she’d had for him had gone dark, mailboxes and comm frequencies only returning errors when she tried to use them, and those she’d questioned had known nothing - but apparently even Acina had known where he was, _who_ he was, and she’d said _nothing_. That idea infuriated her the most - that he’d had ample opportunity, and refused to even _try_ -) 

\- which was why, come their briefing, Eirn was on her third mug of Republic-caf-substitute, a poor replacement for rest on any day but one she knew would be aided in its efforts soon enough by adrenaline and external pressure. 

‘Fact is,’ Malcom was saying, 'None of us can afford to get bogged down here. Certainly not the Empire. Which means they’re going to be looking to end this quickly.’ 

As was Malcom, Eirn reflected, though it was a thought she kept to herself. The truth was that she didn’t want to be there any longer than she had to, either; hadn’t wanted to be here at all, and only wanted to be here _less_ as time passed. She was committed now, though - and was a Sith of her word, even if the Republic didn’t seem to want to quite trust that. 

'Lord Illte,’ Malcom added, glancing to Eirn - and suddenly all eyes in the room were on her, a distinctly unpleasant feeling at the best of times. 'According to our intelligence, you and Major Quinn once had a- close working relationship. What can you tell us about him?’ 

 

_Close working relationship._ Eirn had spent too much time, not-technically-overnight, trying to remember if she’d been able to see his wedding ring, or if he’d been wearing regulation gloves with his uniform. The latter seemed most probable, but a part of her had kept tormenting the rest with the idea of his bare fingers, a public statement that he had shed more than simply their shared name. 

( _as though you’re any better, Illte-_ ) 

'Major Quinn,’ she replied, slowly - his rank, his name (like that - _Quinn_ , unjoined from hers) alien and unpleasant in her mouth - 'Is an accomplished tactician. Empress Acina probably has him directing her offensive.’ 

He’d always been blind, though, to the games of Sith - whether wilfully or not, Eirn could never truly tell, but there’d always been gaps in his thinking. First with Baras, then her - and Vowrawn, and Acina, and every other Sith who’d tried to use her. To use _them_. 

'But the Empire is used to- uneven odds. And Major Quinn in particular,’ she mused, trying to keep her thoughts on-topic, and not entirely succeeding. 

'Asymmetrical warfare is a specialty of Imperial forces,’ Dorne added - nodding crisply to herself as she did so. 'If we hit their facilities, we can expect them to be dug in and prepared for superior numbers.’ 

Dorne’s accent intrigued her, and Eirn itched to know what it was that had resulted in a Kaasi-accented woman at the left hand of the Republic’s highest-ranking military official. There was a story there, and even as she knew it was none of her business, the part of her that envied Anya’s bravery still wanted to know as many details as it could. 

'Which is exactly why this needs to be a two-pronged attack. Cut the head off the snake,’ Malcom replied, 'And the body becomes a lot easier to deal with.’ 

_Malavai._ Eirn didn’t like the sound of that one bit - and rather hoped that the beheading could be kept symbolic. For a long moment, she regretted entirely this incredibly petty decision she’d made to side with the Republic, Acina’s power hungry manipulativeness be damned - but she was stuck here, at least for now, and couldn’t do much of anything for anyone if the Republic decided she was a danger, too. 

'And how,’ she just replied - trying to keep her tone even, and half convinced that not a single soul in the room was buying it, 'Do you intend to do that, exactly?’ 

'Our forces can hold their own with the Imps,’ Malcom replied, flatly. 'But you know the Major, and Captain Dorne is an exemplary operative. She will be joining you in hitting their command structure directly.’ 

( _Imps_ , he kept saying, and Eirn was unpleasantly reminded of the way Awenyth had sneered at her on the Yavin moon. _Imps_ , she’d spat, _only capable of following orders, incapable of thinking, and led by Sith, incapable of feeling_ -) 

'To that end,’ Malcom added, calling up a map on his holographic display, 'You’ll first be hitting a weapons cache our scouts located when we first landed here. We didn’t have time to investigate it much before the Imps showed up,’ he continued, 'But I’m confident you’ll find something there we can use to tip the balance.’ 

Which was as vague a plan as Eirn had ever heard, and she couldn’t help but twitch her brow in response - a wary, mildly apprehensive expression that she forced off her face as soon as it was there. Not before Theron noticed, not if the amusement in his aura was anything to go by - but that was the only reaction that she got (that she _noticed_ she got). It reminded her of the tasks that Baras had assigned her, during her apprenticeship; vague enough for plausible deniability, specific enough that there was something here he wasn’t telling her. 

'Take Captain Dorne with you,’ Malcom added - somewhere between a suggestion and a request and an order, and Eirn didn’t have the energy to argue. 'She is… uniquely qualified, when it comes to the Empire.’ 

Eirn did glance at Dorne, at that, who was just as unreadable as before - her expression professional, her aura smooth. In the manner of glass, at that; of a mirror, reflecting the moods around her but keeping what lay beneath locked tight, inscrutable and invisible. Mirrors could be shattered, of course, but Eirn had no desire to break the Republic woman, not least because it would jeopardise this already shaky alliance - that, and Dorne had hardly earned such an indignity. 

(It occurred to her, of course, this could all be an elaborate trap; Eirn knew that the Republic had never looked kindly on Sith to begin with, and she- well, she’d have earned their ire even without her stint as Vitiate’s right hand. There was a monetary value on her head that she was always surprised that nobody had ever tried to collect, and she wondered, at that, if this wasn’t a fact that she would yet come to regret failing entirely to heed) 

'Very well,’ Eirn finally replied - offering Dorne what she hoped was a friendly smile, even as she doubted Dorne had any great desire to be friendly with tired Sith. Or any Sith, for that matter. 

\- 

The scale of Iokath was something Eirn was certain she would always struggle with; she was not sheltered, by any stretch of the imagination, but the idea of a- 

(a giant sphere, built around a star, not as armour for its inner planets, but- those worlds themselves the armour itself, the inner surface thereof playing the role of worlds that totalled more than this system would have ever had before, the home and final resting place of everything that had once dwelled here. Not just the people - but its plants, from what she could recall, and likely animals as well - at least once, at any rate) 

The weapons depot, though, was not close, even by Iokath’s standards, and the route there was patrolled by Iokath’s own droids - the self-propelled remnants of the intelligence that had run this place, itself one of the final legacies of the people who had built this place. They, like the Sith, had loved war - had delighted in it, exterminating whole worlds simply because they could, and in the end had fallen victim to it, warring on themselves and, ultimately, losing. 

(A part of Eirn knew better than to hope that the Sith might end differently; she wanted to, with all her heart, but had been a semi-willing party to enough of Baras and Acina’s games to know that it was a futile, delusional hope at best) 

Conversation, though, was blissfully nonexistent; they were all there to do a job, and even Theron seemed more focused than chatty, despite his usual penchant for the dramatic. He, though, had been preoccupied since they’d landed, and all the more so since they’d allied with the Republic. A symptom of his poor relationship with his father, perhaps; Eirn was hardly one to judge people for fallings-out with relatives, even if she equally appreciated that he’d kept some kind of professional facade when Malcom had been doling out suggestions phrased like orders. 

'Well. Not quite what I expected to find here.’ It was him that spoke, though, when they reached the cache - who’d taken point, to Dorne’s visible annoyance, and Eirn’s continued bemusement. Usually he was content to let her be the meatshield, but he was wandering this battlefield with a sort of confidence that didn’t entirely suit him. 

The cache was about what Eirn had expected - crates of entirely alien technology, marked in some script that looked nothing like anything she’d ever seen outside of this benighted Sphere. There was no guarantee they _were_ weapons, of course - outside, perhaps, of the fact that weaponry had been this place’s only purpose, and not for the first time, Eirn felt a steely determination to deny this place and its trinkets to the Empire. 

What was unexpected, though - and yet not a surprise in the slightest - was the throne at the far end of the cache’s main room. It was definitely a throne - a capital T Throne, even, which hummed faintly with the Force in a way that only the Zakuulan Throne had, and not for the first time, Eirn remembered that this place had been the Fleet’s birthplace, too. This Throne wasn’t empty, either - even if it wasn’t exactly occupied. What remained of its last occupant was mostly some kind of armoured suit - proof that whoever this had once been had been humanoid, but little seemed to remain of- who, or _what_ , it was. 

'Look on the bright side,’ Eirn just sighed - reaching for some deliberately inappropriate humour. 'Whoever that is won’t be pointing these guns at _us_.’ 

Theron snorted, but said nothing - instead busying himself with what looked like a data node, attempting to slice into the system. Dorne, at her remark, just winced - about what she expected from a professional, and Eirn wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

Dorne was studying her, too - Eirn could _feel_ it, and for a moment, she was reminded of her early days travelling with M- with Quinn, when her less than orthodox beliefs were things that still confounded him - were still risks, that he might yet report her failings to his Master - or to some other, far worse, authority. 

'Something bothering you, Captain?’ she managed, eventually - realising, as she spoke, that it probably sounded as much like a threat as anything, but it was too late to shove the words back in. 

’…No, m- Commander Illte,’ Dorne replied, slightly hesitantly. It was a lie, of course, but one that Eirn wasn’t entirely certain how to go about challenging without antagonising her entirely. 

'Friendly advice,’ Theron immediately cut in. 'Don’t call her _Commander_. And _definitely_ don’t call her _Wrath_.’ 

Eirn shot Theron a glare for that before she could stop herself, not least because of the fact she loathed being discussed in the third person. 

'What’ve you found, Theron? Anything useful?’ It was a topic she dropped, though - discarded, in the hope that it wouldn’t be picked up again. 

'Yeah,’ Theron replied, after a moment - slightly distracted, as he worked on breaking into the system. 'Looks like this was used to try and control the superweapon. If I’m reading this right,’ he added, 'This isn’t the original control system, but… one created by a rival faction of Iokath’s creators.’ 

He paused, at that - looking back to what remained on the corpse on the throne, an ominous figure if there ever had been one. Eirn had half a mind to take a holo for Acina, but was equally certain that if she did, the other Sith would only see it as a challenge - or a _threat_. 

'We know that the creators of this place wiped themselves out in a civil war. If I’m reading this right… our dead friend here is the one responsible,’ he added - glancing at the remains of the alien, again. 'They tried to slice into the system, triggered some failsafe, and…’ 

'No more life on Iokath,’ Eirn replied, after a moment. Another world, scoured of life; not in the way that Ziost and Nathema had been, perhaps, but she doubted that had been much comfort to those who’d died here. 

'Sir,’ Dorne started - pausing, as she attracted the attention of both Eirn and Theron, 'If I may- Am I understanding correctly, that this weapon is controlled from-’ 

Her gaze flickered to the throne, at that - the final resting place of one Iokath’s original creators, if Theron was correct. 

'Apparently,’ Eirn replied, frowning to herself. It made sense, of a sort; the Fleet were Throne-controlled, too. Apparently the builders of Iokath had liked their furniture to be functional as well as needlessly ornate. 

'Theron,’ Eirn added, 'Pull as much information out of the system as you can. But… try not to set anything off,’ she added, wincing as she did so. The last thing they needed was to accidentally fry the place. 'If we’re going to destroy this thing, we need as much information on it as we can get.’ 

'Already on it,’ he replied - his attention sliding back to the datapad he had hooked up to Iokath’s systems, 

Dorne hesitated, again - frowning to herself, as she studied the Throne - and Theron, at that, as he worked. 'So- it’s possible that- someone with access to the system could- attempt that again? Slicing in, without getting access to the main system, and then…’ 

That wasn’t a possibility that Eirn liked the sound of in the slightest, and- a part of her knew immediately that it was exactly the kind of foolishness that Acina would attempt - if not in person, then in proxy. And Malavai- well, he’d never been one to question orders, and especially not ones that came from a Sith. 

'They’d have to be incredibly stupid,’ Theron volunteered, glancing pointedly to the corpse they were sharing the room with. 

'Or desperate,’ Eirn added - and nothing summed up the feeling that the Empire liked to instil in its people like _desperate_. 

'That’s precisely my concern,’ Dorne replied, just as crisply as before. 'If someone were to attempt this a second time, and failed-’ 

'We need to find this weapon,’ Eirn interrupted, 'And _destroy_ it, before that can happen.’ Or at the very least-  

( _focus, Illte-_ ) 

'In my experience, sir,’ Dorne started, oblivious to Eirn’s inner monologue, 'Safely destroying something of this- magnitude will take-’ 

'Time,’ Eirn agreed, 'And expertise.’ And agreement, which Eirn wasn’t entirely certain she would get - not from Lana, at any rate. 

'Yes, sir. We may be able to assemble the expertise, but I find it unlikely that the Empire will afford us the time.’ Dorne was not the font of optimism and good news that Eirn wanted her to be, and it was difficult not to resent her at least a little because of it. 

'Well, then,’ Eirn replied, 'That just makes it all the more urgent we chase the Empire back to Kaas.’ 

That, at the very least, did not get any argument.


	4. Chapter 4

Of all the people Eirn hadn't expected to see when they returned, it was Lana who was waiting for them impatiently at the Republic's base camp - pacing irritably behind the checkpoint, shooting challenging looks to any Pubs who looked as though they might be about to question her presence and, on spotting Eirn, homing in on her almost immediately.

'Lord Illte. I'm glad to see you made it back in one piece.' This time, there was nothing snide or sour about her use of Eirn's title - it was genuine, or as genuine as she got, which was enough to unsettle Eirn on the best of days. It was a slightly unfair reaction; Lana did not plot to steal power and status, despite orthodox views on Sith philosophy. Still, it was an ingrained one - Eirn had not lasted as long as she had among Sith by being a Jedi's version of _fair_ , and everything about Lana Beniko set those well-tested instincts on edge.

'Lana,' Eirn replied, half in greeting - and then, frowning, 'Something's wrong.'

An understatement; Lana Beniko did not make a habit of abandoning her posts, and would have harangued Eirn over the holo, were this anything but a matter of- well, life or death, a thought that didn't make Eirn feel any better.

'Not here,' Lana replied, sharply - shooting a dark, wary glance at the Republic guards before returning her attention to Eirn. 'In my shuttle. There's something you need to see.'

-

Which meant, of course, something that Lana didn't want to share with the Republic; which meant that she was tipping her hand that there was something that she didn't want to share with them, and that Lana had decided that whatever had unsettled her enough to abandon her post was worth potentially upsetting the Republic's shaky almost-trust in the Alliance. None of this filled Eirn with anything but a mild, gnawing dread that Lana's own tension was doing nothing to abate.

'I've been taking a look at the information that led us to Iokath in the first place, and comparing it to what Theron pulled from the data node that you found. It looks like we were fed _nearly_ the same information,' Lana added, calling up a holographic display - showing two sets of data, highlighting the differences between the two. 'But pieces of it were missing. Like they'd been deliberately redacted.'

The data on the display meant nothing to Eirn - numbers and figures, scrolling past too fast to read, not that she'd ever had a head for numbers to begin with. She did recognise the map, though - the path they'd taken to the supposed weapons cache, and the visual record of what looked, at first glance, like the Throne they'd found.

'So whoever brought us here sent us bad intel,' Eirn replied, slowly - not quite getting what Lana was getting at.

'Nearly. It was missing various key chunks of information. But that's not the worst part,' Lana added, calling up a third set of data. 'Take a look at this.'

Eirn had no idea what she was looking at, other than lists and figures and numbers - and the points at which those sets differed. 'I'm looking at...?' she prompted, eventually - not getting it.

'This is the data that was sent to the Alliance,' Lana replied, sighing testily as she indicated the middle set, 'And this is what I was able to pull from the Republic datasets. The information we were leaked is identical.'

Well, that definitely wasn't odd.

'Are you sure about this?' Eirn replied - shooting Lana a dark, slightly wary look, and getting an identical one in return.

'I'm certain,' Lana said, nodding sharply. 'I've checked and rechecked it three times. Whoever sent us - and the Republic - this information wanted us in the same place, at the same time.'

'...This is a set-up,' Eirn added, the urgency of Lana's problem finally clicking into place. 'Someone manipulated us and the Republic to be here by feeding us just enough to get us interested, then...'

'Likely the Empire, too,' Lana replied, tersely. 'Of course, I'd need to examine their leads to be sure, but given the timing, it seems a fair assumption.'

'What do we know about the source? Where did you get the information to begin with?' Eirn started, eventually - studying Lana for a long moment.

'I've already told you,' Lana replied, irritably. 'It was anonymous. I've tried to track down the source, but whoever it was is good at hiding their tracks.'

Which was the very opposite of reassuring, and Eirn felt her headache _twinge_ at all the unpleasant possibilities.

_Someone wants you dead, Illte. Someone wants a war. Someone wants to put the blame for war on_ you _. (They'd be right, too - fighting is all you've ever been good at, Illte. Death follows you, like a bad smell-)_

'Alright,' Eirn sighed, after a moment. 'Well.' Thank you, Lana, for adding to the reasons we should have stayed away from here. 'Thank you for letting me know. Maybe... have Theron see if he can get any information about the Republic's source,' she added \- an incredibly long shot in the dark, but at this point, she'd almost have valued input from her former Emperor. _Almost_.

'Just as long as you're not expecting miracles. Things between Theron and his father seem to be...' Lana trailed off - apparently she wanted to finish that sentence about as much as she needed to.

The estrangement was obvious - Eirn was quite certain she'd have picked that much up even _without_ the Force. A part of her kept wanting to take Theron by the shoulders and march him to wherever Malcom called his command HQ and _make_ them talk - or, at the very least, give him a meaningful and pointed order - but she knew, equally, that was probably her own regret, attempting to live vicariously through someone else's reconciliation. Not that she and her father had fallen out, exactly, but- well, there enough things that had been left unsaid to fill a lifetime of awkward small talk.

'I know,' she just sighed, though - before adding, 'But I suspect he'd have more luck than you or I.' They weren't just the enemy, after all, but Sith - even if Lana seemed more attached to her Alliance than the Empire.

Lana just chuckled at that, though - a rare but genuine kind of amusement showing in her expression. 'True enough. Alright,' she added, though - 'I should get back to work. I'll contact you when I've got an update.'

-

Lana wasn't the only one who was surrounded by an aura of dread, either; the atmosphere in Malcom's command station was downright grim, when Eirn finally made it there, and she wasn't certain that anything that was coming was going to be an improvement on Lana's grim assessments.

'We have a problem.'

Four of Eirn's least favourite words, spoken in one of her least favourite orders and by one of her least favourite accents. She had no idea where in the Republic it was that Malcom hailed from, and didn't care; a part of her even now instinctively wanted to reach for her lightsaber whenever she heard Republic soldiers speaking, and _we have a problem_ wasn't doing anything to reassure her.

'Of course we do,' she replied - sighing, and wondering if this was going to be the moment that she ended up in Force-suppressing restraints, on a ship bound for Coruscant. 'What is it now?'

'While you were out,' Malcom replied, calling up a holographic display - showing what seemed to be the main Imperial position, as seen from one of the Republic's scouting positions, 'One of our forward scouts sent us this, shortly before your team returned to base. The Imps have been landing more of their people, but... it's not the numbers that concern me.'

The display finally paused, at that - focused on one of the Imperial shuttles, the same model that Eirn recognised as having occupied Acina's private docking bays on Kaas. She had no idea how common or otherwise they were in the Empire - its fleets and their makeup were of vanishingly low interest to her, though no doubt Theron or Lana could have told her more. It wasn't the shuttle that got her attention, though, but its passenger - a haughty, tightly-wound Sith who looked almost as thrilled to be there as Eirn was.

_Acina._

Her, or an uncanny body double. Still, it was harder to fool Sith than to fool Republic holos, and Eirn knew that there would inevitably be those among the Imperial forces who had prior experience working with the Empress. Sith were creatures of habit, after all; had allies and enemies, routines and patterns, habits and foibles - facts she'd used against others, and had used against her, in turn.

'Do we know what she's doing here?' Eirn replied, glancing to Malcom - and to his analyst, another pale-skinned human who'd smirked to himself when Eirn had entered the room, but who thus far had said nothing.

'Not yet,' Malcom replied, 'Though I can hazard a few guesses.'

'Sir,' Dorne started, 'I may be able to provide some insight. While we were unable to locate anything of immediate use against the Imperial forces, we were able to confirm the hypothesis that the weapon can be remotely controlled. It would seem that an attempt to do just that is what lead to the deaths of the people who built this facility. Agent Shan believes, and I concur, that with the right information, it would theoretically be possible for one of us to attempt the same thing. It is also probable, however, that the results would be... similar.'

Eirn couldn't help but raise her brow at _that_. 'You knew about that?' she replied - not appreciating having been left so completely out of the loop. She half-expected it from the Republic, but- 

( _Theron used to_ be _Republic,_ her paranoia murmured, _and Malcom is his father. Do not underestimate blood ties, Illte_ -)

'We suspected it might,' Malcom replied, cutting in before Dorne could go any further, 'But had no hard proof.'

Eirn could feel her temple starting to throb; her head hurt, and her fatigue was catching up with her. She knew she'd never sleep, but all she wanted was to lie down, somewhere dark - away from this stupid battle, away from machines of mass murder and all these lunatics who seemed desperate to use them. She closed her eyes, though - massaging the bridge of her nose, trying to focus on her more immediate problems, like power-hungry Sith and empty Thrones.

'The Empress wouldn't be here unless there'd been a breakthrough,' Theron started - and the Imperial lines were holding fast, or so it seemed.

'Or she's here to force one,' Eirn added, slightly absent-mindedly - thinking, at that, of the way Acina had spoken to her on Kaas. Acina had possessed an agenda, there, that had nothing to do with the Alliance - Eirn had been able to tell that much without even trying, even if she'd run into brick walls trying to figure out what that was. 

'Acina's not stupid,' Malcom replied, apparently objecting. 'If she pushes her people too hard, and this- failsafe goes off, she'll just end up killing her own people, too.'

'Sith don't care about Imperial lives,' Eirn replied, frowning to herself. 'Just ending Republic ones.'

All Eirn could think of, as she spoke, was the Dread Seeds; the ruin they had wrought even on Imperial interests, and the blasé way Acina had regarded them.

_How do you walk away from such power, Wrath?_

Acina hadn't wanted them out of the field - not personally, not in the places where they might pose a problem for the Republic, even if it meant running the risk of Imperials or even Sith falling victim to their power. ( _Any Sith_ , a part of Eirn had snarled, even then, _who falls victim to such things was hardly Sith to begin with_ -)

Acina, though, had thought nothing of the harm they did, nothing of the damage to their environs. Eirn had no idea if the places that those things had been buried had ever recovered, or not, though she knew enough about the corruption inherent in the darkest places of the Force to know that it was deeply unlikely. It was more likely that their rot had spread, seeping deep into the cores of those worlds and twisting them beyond anything that Tagriss or Fulminiss might dared of dream of.

Iokath, of course, was not a Sith world, and whatever weapon these Thrones controlled was not of Sith design, but- the Force flowed through them, all the same, shaped and directed by ancient technology into something crafted for war and destruction, and had already laid waste to numerous worlds. Acina, of course, would want to test it - on Odessen, perhaps, full of defiant traitors and heretics - or some other nominally neutral world, before turning it on the Republic. Not to mention any Imperial worlds who objected to such needless slaughter...

'Hey. You alright?' Theron spoke quietly, at least - did her the favour of not drawing attention to the fact she'd drifted into that train of unpleasant thought, while Malcom and Dorne were distracted by their own 

Eirn just managed a noncommittal _Hm_ that probably answered him far more honestly than she might have liked, before attempting to focus up on the discussion at hand.

'-agree entirely sir,' Dorne was saying, 'But without knowing where to start-'

'I'll offer to speak to her,' Eirn volunteered - grabbing everyone's attention, and derailing whatever Dorne was objecting entirely. 'Empress Acina has reached out to me personally before. Perhaps it's time I returned the gesture.'

'You think she'll speak to you? After allying with us?' Malcom sounded sceptical, and Eirn couldn't blame him. _She_ was sceptical, and she was the one who'd just proposed the idea.

'She'll assume it's a trap, obviously,' Eirn replied, 'But... we have a history.' 

Simultaneously more personal than simply Wrath and Councillor, and far less personal than Acina's flowers might have suggested she'd have liked. Even the flowers Acina had sent on Eirn and Quinn's engagement had been a pointed message - Rakami orchids, a neutered, Force-blunted variant of the so-called death orchid, and Eirn hadn't been able to make up her mind if it was a threat or an insult or both. 

('Both, darling,' her mother had insisted, 'the answer is _both_.')

'If nothing else,' Eirn mused, 'I stand a better chance of talking her down than any of your people. No offence,' she added.

Or push her into doing something stupid, though Lana's interminable briefings on the state of the galaxy had Eirn half-convinced that, among other things, the Empire had worked its way through the _stupid_ list some years previously, and was currently reaching the bottom of _desperate_. What happened when they ran out of desperate moves was something she didn't want to contemplate; nobody would like the answer to that, not least if they wanted to live in the galaxy afterwards.

'It's your call, Commander,' Malcom just replied - apparently pretending not to see Eirn's reflexive twitch at the title. 'But the Republic will be sitting this one out. I came here to end a war, not start one.'

Of course he would say that; Malcom wouldn't want to waste his people on a Sith that he thought was probably going to betray them in the end anyway. Eirn managed to quash the urge to snort in response, though - just nodded, sharply, deciding to let him think that she was none the wiser.

'I understand,' she replied - a nugget of an idea forming, as she said it. Lana probably wouldn't like it, but it stood a chance of getting them some answers. 'I'll see you on the other side,' she added - standing, then, to leave - to prepare. To fight.


	5. Chapter 5

Acina, much to Eirn's surprise, kept to her word - she had a pilot of her own in her shuttle, an Imperial whose identity was shrouded by their standard-issue headgear, but there were no others accompanying her. Eirn didn't doubt for a moment that there were snipers trained on the position, of course (Theron claiming to have spotted at least two, in her earpiece, did absolutely nothing to calm her nerves - and there were friendly ones, of course, though Eirn knew better than to hope that this might be enough to save her, should Acina try to strike) but- 

'Wrath.' Acina looked about as impressed as she had over the holo - both the one that the Republic had captured, and the one that Eirn had taken on Odessen, in the moments following the news that they would not be standing with the Sith Empire. 

'Empress,' Eirn replied - offering her a small, polite bow. The title, as it always did, made her bristle; it was an accusation, any more, as much as a honorific. 'Thank you for agreeing to talk.' 

Acina just snorted, at that - crossed her arms, and glanced over Eirn with evident disdain.

'So talk. My patience is thin, Wrath, and my time is short.' 

Which was a good start, though Eirn couldn't say she was surprised. Acina had been brusque even when she'd courted Eirn's attention; now that Eirn had all but declared herself the other Sith's enemy, Acina had even less cause to pretend towards civility than she ever had done. She'd agreed to this, though - the two of them, at the centrepoint between the Republic and Imperial lines, equidistant from backup, and accompanied only by their shuttle pilots. The air was tense, all the same - meetings between Sith always were, but between Sith who were poised to have their sabers at each other's throats, all the more so. 

'Empress,' Eirn began - attempting not to pace nervously, and barely succeeding, 'Let's- get straight to the point. We both know why you're here, on Iokath. We both know,' she added, 'That it's the same reason that the Republic are here.' Possibly not an admission that would help her cause, but it was better than attempting to deny such an obvious truth. 

'I want,' Eirn added, 'to ask you to reconsider.' 

Acina actually laughed at that, after a moment - a surprised, accusatory laugh, but a laugh all the same. 

' _Reconsider_? You must be joking. Are you seriously asking me to step aside, and let you claim this weapon? For the _Republic_?' Acina was smiling, as she spoke, but her eyes were hard and her posture tightly wound, hostile defensiveness radiating through her aura. 

' _No_ ,' Eirn replied, firmly - granted, the more she thought on it, the less she had any real hope that the Republic might be persuaded to see reason, but that was why she was hoping Koth and his people would come through. For all that she had come to hate imposing her will on others through violence - for all that she knew it would undermine every pretty speech she'd ever made about wanting to truly change, for wanting the Sith to be something better than the schoolyard bullies that they were - it wasn't a move she was above making, either, not if her bluff was called and her hand forced.

 ('We have saying, on Onderon,' Aemilia had mused. ' _Hope for peace. Prepare for war_.' 

'That doesn't sound like a very _Jedi_ sentiment,' Eirn had replied, amused. Granted, Eirn knew very little about the Jedi orthodoxy, and in truth, didn't care too, either. but _prepare for war_ sounded more like a sentiment that Baras would have been fond of - at least, if you ignored the _hope for peace_ part. 

'I said it was from Onderon,' Aemilia had replied, smiling to herself, 'Not the Temple.') 

'I don't intend to let the Republic claim it, either,' she added - 'Or the Alliance, for that matter. The sort of power this place can unleash shouldn't be wielded by any one of us.' 

Acina, though, just snorted - looked Eirn up and down, at that, judging her for every moment. 'And who are you, Wrath, to judge what power I may wield?' 

'I'm not here to _judge_ , Empress,' Eirn replied, sourly - though there was more than enough judgement on Iokath to go around. 'But the last people to be so blasé about destroying whole worlds were Arcann - and _Vitiate_. I was hoping _you_ might be more reasonable.' 

An insult, probably; Acina certainly looked insulted, though her expression seemed to be cycling between insulting and derisive as it was. Being _reasonable_ was not generally a quality prized among Sith - certainly not the kinds of Sith who clawed their way onto the Dark Council, never mind those who managed to seat themselves on the Empire's throne. 

'I am perfectly reasonable,' she replied, sharply - glaring at Eirn, as if daring her to challenge this. 'And I am doing what any reasonable person would to defend my Empire.' 

'And you think this will be the end of it?' Eirn replied - who was rapidly running out of ground, and she knew it. 'That if you take this world and its technology for your own, that the Republic won't be scrambling to build something just as bad? That they won't _use_ it, as soon as you do?' 

Acina's gaze hardened further, at that - her nostrils flared, her lips thinned, her aura bristled with the static that built before a storm. 'Is that a _threat_ , Wrath?' 

'It's not a threat, Empress,' Eirn replied, flatly. 'It's a fact. Or are you really telling me,' she added, 'That you wouldn't do exactly the same, in their place?'

  
'I'd do whatever was necessary to defend myself,' Acina replied, tartly - or some facsimile thereof, an attempt to cover up her own defensiveness with wit. 'And the best defence is a good offence, Wrath. Surely Baras taught you that much, before you turned on him?' she scoffed - crossing her arms, a slight, arrogant, slouch working its way into her otherwise perfect posture. 

'Baras turned on _me_ ,' Eirn replied - immediately side-tracked by ancient history, of course, and floundering to try and keep up. 'And what he taught me,' she added, 'Is that Sith who would wage war at all costs do more harm to the Empire than the Republic ever could.' _There. Back on track._

Acina, at that, just smirked - a smug, victorious expression, that promised nothing good. 'Then you will be relieved to know, dear Meliora, that I do not intend to wage war. I will _end_ it, with or without you.' 

Well, that didn't bode incredibly poorly - just like everything else about this place, and Eirn was about to reply when Acina got there first. 

'The truth, Wrath,' Acina added, 'Is that by even asking for this, you have shown your hand. You don't have control of Iokath,' she mused, 'Or you'd have forced us off, with or without your new friends. So you've come crawling to me, in the hope that- what? You can bluff your way to victory? Please. You may have skill with a lightsaber,' she smirked, 'But that's not what's going to win this war, and we both know _that_.' 

Not just one insult - a series of them, Acina not just taking jabs at Eirn but everything she had haltingly attempted. Eirn's first thought was that Acina wasn't being much better; her second was that at least she _had_ skill with a lightsaber, and her third was annoyance that Acina had so expertly derailed her thoughts entirely. 

'I would prefer, Empress,' Eirn replied, slowly, 'For there not to be war at all. That's not a bluff. It's the truth. Nobody else has to die, here. But if you try to control Iokath-' 

Acina just snorted again, not letting Eirn finish. 'Don't threaten me, Meliora. Strike at the Empire again, and-' 

'It's not a _threat_ , Acina,' Eirn hissed - interrupting the Empress, this time. 'The people of Iokath destroyed themselves fighting over the weapons here, and-' 

'In that case, Wrath,' Acina replied, interrupting her again in turn, 'You should probably leave, while you still can.' She smiled, at that - her expression that of Sith diplomacy, all poisoned honey and slim knives. 'It would be terrible, after all, were anyone to needlessly die.' 

\- 

The air was no better, in Acina's absence; just as tense, just as sharp, and just as judgemental. It took every gram of Eirn's self-control not to sprint back to her shuttle, as though it could provide some rest or refuge that seemed as elusive on this world as it did on any other. 

The fact it couldn't, helped; all it contained was Lana, her own aura muddied with concern, though Eirn didn't like to entertain too many possibilities as to that concern's focus. Lana, for all her having parted with the Empire, was far more Sith than Eirn was - at least, the sort of Sith the Empire prized, instead of punished. 

'I take it,' Lana began, as the shuttle lifted off - headed, ostensibly, back towards Republic command - 'That the Empress was not amenable to your suggestions?' 

It was accompanied, of course, by a mildly amused smile; a smile, not a smirk, as though Eirn was somehow not the punchline. Lana approved of this _stop the war_ plan almost as much as Acina did - almost as much as Malcom seemed to, and Eirn was rapidly starting to wonder if there was anyone left in the galaxy who was fed up with all the fighting. 

'Just tell me that was worth it,' Eirn just sighed - slumping in the copilot's seat, trying not to let her exhausted dejection get the better of her, and mostly failing. 

'It was worth it,' Lana replied - her own attention mostly on the shuttle, as they took off, but paying Eirn at least enough to reply. 'I was able to take a peek into the Imperial data network. I'd need time to run a full comparison, but it seems that the information they were working from was the same that we and the Republic received. But that's not our only problem.' 

_Of course it is_. Eirn hadn't expected anything else, though she'd needed to be sure - needed to know, if nothing else, that Acina and M- _Quinn_ hadn't been the ones responsible for forcing this confrontation. That the Empire wasn't- well, the Empire was always fixing for a fight, and fights it couldn't win, at that - but this wasn't their doing, not this time. 

Of course, there was a chance that Lana was not telling the whole truth; a chance, at that, that the Empire had anticipated even this, and lain a trap accordingly. This hadn't been the first time Acina had gambled on Eirn's loyalty, and it was the second time she'd lost ( _but what_ , her paranoia murmured, _if this was no loss? If she is looking for a way to destroy you, to avenge what she sees as your betrayal? And the Empire_ will _see you as a traitor, after this - never mind after your refusal of their aid on Voss, and to aid them in turn against Zakuul. And after that oath you swore the Council, too_ -) 

'Problem?' Eirn repeated, eventually - that word finally burrowing its way through her paranoia's ramblings and not so much grabbing her attention as demanding it, banging its fists on her walls until she paid it the attention it thought itself due. 

'Yes,' Lana replied - nodding curtly and, when Eirn glanced at her, furrowing her brow faintly in distant worry. 'I'd need to look into the data more, but it seems as though the Empire have begun construction on their own control device, based on the plans in the data package. The _incomplete_ plans.' 

_Shit._ 'That's not good,' Eirn replied - that was a whole _world_ of not good. If Iokath's own inhabitants hadn't managed to slice into the superweapon without triggering its faildeadly- 

'No,' Lana replied, 'It's not. I need to check the data, but-' 

'Pass me the flight controls,' Eirn interrupted, sitting up - focusing up, grabbing at her worried adrenaline and attempting to direct it somewhere useful. 'You check the data. If Acina's building something that could-' 

She paused at that, though - half not wanting to give that worried train of thought more voice than she had to, and half because Lana had passed her the controls and she needed to concentrate. Her piloting skills had never been more than 'adequate' - she would be useless if they were caught in combat, but adequate was more than enough to get them to the Republic command post. 

'We'll need to move quickly,' Eirn finished, slightly absently, the task at hand routine enough that she could let her hands do the thinking, and complex enough to demand enough of her attention that her paranoia was, for once, almost drowned out.  

'I'll be in the back,' Lana just replied - disentangling herself from the pilot's chair, before standing to move. 'And-' 

'Signal the Republic,' Eirn added, before Lana could finish that thought. There was no way the Alliance could do this on their own; they both knew that much, even if neither Sith was entirely happy with their arrangements (even if one was distinctly more unhappy than the other). 'We need to stop this, before it gets any further out of hand.' 

For a moment, Lana didn't respond; for a moment, Eirn was half convinced that she was about to argue, but the moment passed and the tension in the air resolved itself into muted disagreement. 

'Very well,' Lana replied - along with a curt nod, and with that, was gone to the comm panel, leaving Eirn at the helm, alone. 

Which was, as always, the least of her problems. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Following the events of SoR, Eirn was arrested and dragged before the Dark Council, accused of treason and in aiding and abetting the Sith called Vitiate in his turning on the Empire. In the end, the Council had to be satisfied with her renewed oath of loyalty towards the Empire, and her pledge of service to Darth Marr - who sponsored her for the position of Darth, in return for her loyalty and her aid in the campaign against their former Emperor. The name she took, _Meliora_ , is an ancient Sith word which translates into Basic as 'to strive to become better'.


	6. Chapter 6

_‘Commander. Meet the Nova Strider.’_

It could not, of course, be as simple as calling in backup. 

The Republic needed time to mobilise - to plan, to prepare, to make their movements without drawing undue Imperial attention. (The Alliance, too, needed to make its preparations - to move into position, to prove itself to its wary ally). 

The _Nova Strider_ was a Walker - a huge Republic battledroid, of the kind Eirn had seen on more battlefields than she cared to admit. They were bulky, ugly things - tools of propaganda and psychological warfare, far more than anything else, but it wasn’t as though the Imperial forces were immune to those. Malcom, of course, was showing her off with all the pride of a new father - a comparison that Eirn winced at, when she caught sight of Theron, who seemed almost as unimpressed as she was. 

'It’s big,’ she replied - floundering for something uncritical to say, and mostly just coming up with that. 'I’ll give you that.’ 

Malcom, of course, just chuckled - darkly, did soldiers ever chuckle any other way? - but apparently wasn’t insulted. 'She’s got the firepower to back it up, too. The tech guys haven’t had a chance to incorporate any of Iokath’s toys, yet, but-’ 

And there it was. The admission that made Eirn grimace - that the Republic were already plundering this world and its weapons of mass-murder, even if they hadn’t yet admitted going after the weapon that had destroyed it.  This didn’t fill Eirn with confidence they might listen to her pleas that they not chase the same treasure that Acina was enamoured of, never mind attempt the same kind of stupidity that she apparently was. 

'I take it,’ Eirn just started - trying to push those thoughts aside, and not succeeding, 'That the _Strider_ will be hitting their front lines?’ 

'I’ll spare you the details,’ Malcom replied, chuckling to himself again. 'But she’s part of your distraction. Along with your people, we’ll be hitting key Imperial points to draw them out into the fight. Once we’ve got their attention, you’ll have the opportunity to move in and hit their command centre. Take that out, and all that’s left is to mop up.’ 

Which Eirn couldn’t help but be insulted by, a little; the idea that the Empire could be routed so easily, even if she could see the truth of it. Even if, at that, the Republic would be any less paralysed, were Malcom and his people to be taken out. (Even if, at that, the Alliance was any less vulnerable, should it lose its leaders).

'Take Captain Dorne with you,’ Malcom added, jerking Eirn out of that thought - and looking at her, at that, in a way that suggested that this was not an option. Presumably to make sure she didn’t betray them all - to protect the Republic’s interests in all this.

Eirn, though, wasn’t going to complain about the Republic risking some of its own in this - if nothing else, proving that she had no desire to stab them all in the back might even buy the Alliance a little leeway. 'Of course,’ she replied - glancing over to Dorne, who was just as unreadable as she had been before. 

'I don’t intend taking in a large team,’ Eirn added - watching Dorne carefully, all the same. 'We’ll need to move quickly, and that means small numbers.’ 

It also meant not wanting to be outnumbered by Pubs, even if - in theory - she could outmatch them simply by virtue of the Force. She trusted the Republic, if she was honest, about as much as it trusted her, and had no desire to be caught by surprise.

'We’ve also got a decent idea of the lay of the area, thanks to Theron’s intel. So,’ Eirn mused, sounding more confident than she felt, 'We’re not stumbling in blind. And Lana and I will deal with any Sith we encounter, including the Empress.’ 

'You’re really planning to fight Acina?’ Theron sounded as cynical, in that moment, as every Pub in the room looked - extremely, not least because he seemed to have at least a hint of an idea as to the extent of Eirn and Acina’s prior relationship - never mind her connection to Quinn. 

'If I have to,’ Eirn replied - meeting that gaze, not backing down for a moment. Saying it was one thing, though - doing it was quite another, even if it wasn’t the fight itself that was concerning her. 

Acina’s bladework, back on Kaas, had been rote - had been the practice-perfect swordswomanship of a pampered acolyte who had the best tutors that money and peerage could supply, but had never faced another in true combat before her trials. Doubtless Acina _had_ faced other Sith, both before and since her graduation - but Eirn knew that once one dragged oneself out of the maw that was the Academies, facing other Sith in single combat became a far less frequent affair. It was probable that Acina hadn’t truly fought another Sith with her saber in _years_ ; not to say that she had never been in danger, but the dangers posed by Lords of the Sith came in forms other than _makeshi_ or _soresu_. It had shown, too - Acina had held her own, as they’d fought their way through the Kaasi jungles, but it had become obvious that her skills with a lightsaber had been honed against a teacher, of late, instead of an enemy. 

'Captain Dorne,’ Eirn added - not relishing this question, and rather hoping it didn’t put ideas into anyone’s heads that she’d end up regretting, 'Do you or your people carry Force restraints?’ 

Dorne frowned slightly, at the question; shot a glance at Malcom, who remained unreadable, but otherwise offered Eirn a curt nod. 'They’re not standard issue,’ she replied, 'But we do carry them, yes.’ 

Which prompted a whole world of other thoughts, none of which were going to be helpful. 'Good,’ Eirn replied, nodding - continuing to pace, attempting to expend that nervousness before it started manifesting as static. 

'You really think you can get Acina to surrender?’ Malcom sounded more than a little sceptical when he said that, and Eirn couldn’t blame him. It was a notion she’d find difficult to believe herself - which was why she didn’t hold out any hope that she could. 

Eirn shook her head, as she tried to marshal the words - and tried not, at that, to let the nagging fears nag loud enough to give her pause. 'Not willingly. But- killing Acina will destabilise the Empire. And if you’re hoping to avoid all-out war,’ she added, looking meaningfully to Malcom, 'That won’t help.’ 

This too was a gamble, of course; Eirn would have wagered that the Republic would have gladly destabilised the Empire, threat of war or no, and - there, one of only two Sith in a room full of Pubs - it was impossible not to feel like this was a gamble she was doomed to lose. An unstable Empire, after all, would be easier to crush - even if it meant the deaths of millions of Imperials, even if it meant the ruin of more Republic worlds by desperate Sith hands. Not for the first time, Eirn hated whatever forces had pushed her into this corner - into attempting politics, hamfistedly attempting to save people who’d have gladly executed her as a traitor for the attempt, more like a hypocritical Jedi than a free Sith and not even able to tell herself that she’d at least protected the people she cared about the most. 

Malcom was unreadable, of course, a lifetime of being an enemy commander giving him experience in concealing his inner monologues from Force users, and his expression gave nothing away that wasn’t already obvious. 

'Theron,’ Eirn added, 'I want you here, monitoring Iokath’s systems. We need to know if the Empire have managed to connect to the superweapon’s systems, and I’d like to know _before_ they wipe us all out.’ 

For a moment, Theron looked like he was going to protest - or even complain. He relented, though - pausing for a moment as he listened to something, before looking back to Eirn. 'I can certainly try. No promises, though. It’s hard enough just pulling data down without tripping their firewalls, never mind…’ 

'Break into the Imperial systems if you have to,’ Eirn replied, flatly, 'Just get it done.’ 

He shot her a look, for that, which looked more offended than it was anything else - but relented, before going back to half-ignoring them all in favour of his datapad. 

'If that weapon goes off,’ Lana started, 'It’ll take us- _hours_ to evacuate. Without knowing where it is-’ 

'Then we’d better make sure it doesn’t,’ Eirn interrupted. 'And right now, that means stopping the Empire from doing something incredibly stupid.’ 

Something twitched in Dorne’s expression, at that; there and gone before Eirn could pin it down, but definitely a reaction. ( _Did Malcom know he’d find the Empire here,_ Eirn wondered, _or is she a true coincidence?_ ) As true as any coincidences got, anyway; Eirn loathed the Force too much to believe in them, but neither Dorne nor Malcom seemed to have any attunement to it. 

'Alright then. We should be ready to move within the hour.’ Malcom was all business, and Eirn wondered, for a moment, just how much she was going to regret this. 'In the mean time, I suggest you finish your own preparations. Captain Dorne, a private word?’ 

\- 

The Republic weren’t the end of it, of course; Lana also required a private chat in her shuttle, before they were called to action, and Eirn was more than happy to accommodate her. If nothing else, it put a wall between them and the Pubs; between those judgemental, wary stares that tracked her every movement, setting her on edge in a way she hadn’t felt since she’d last been truly in the Empire. 

'So, assuming this plan of yours works,’ Lana started, her voice low and her tone, hard, 'What are your intentions, once Acina is… dealt with?’ 

Lana wasn’t bothering to hide her disapproval; not just because they’d allied against the Empire, but because Eirn was so opposed to even the Alliance taking Iokath and its treasures. Lana, Eirn had long realised, had been a much better match for the sphere of Military Offense than she had - would have been a much better match for Baras, would have been a much more obedient Wrath. Still one who’d chafed at her leashes, perhaps - Lana was as wilful and ambitious as any Sith was _supposed_ to be, but an endlessly less inappropriate choice for those positions than Eirn had been. 

( _Then again_ , Eirn would always reflect, _I was easy for them to manipulate, too._ Which, she had no doubt, had always been a factor - her own antipathy towards certain kinds of Sith ambition, combined with the sins that could be held against her - that she’d willingly used her position as _Wrath_ to protect, becoming her own blackmailer - saving the Hand, no doubt, all kinds of effort) 

'Then,’ Eirn replied, shooting the doors a wary look, 'We make sure the Republic isn’t about to do anything incredibly stupid, either.’ 

Lana’s disapproval didn’t lessen any, for that, but she at least seemed to back down a little - nodding sharply, before throwing the door her own wary glance. 'Very well.’ Then she paused - frowned to herself, before adding, 'Just don’t forget that the Empire were tricked into being here just as much as the rest of us.’ 

'Perhaps,’ Eirn replied, 'But nobody _tricked_ them into trying to hack the superweapon. They arrived at that all on their own.’ 

Which Lana couldn’t argue with, and therefore made her scowl. 'And I’m sure that the Republic would have done the same thing, if we were allied against them,’ she retorted - ignoring the sour look she got from Theron, who was mostly there to keep the peace. 

'Perhaps,’ Eirn repeated, 'But that’s not the situation we’re dealing with.’ Which wasn’t the right thing to say, of course - but then, what was? 

'If there’s nothing else,’ she added - cutting Lana off before she could begin, 'We should get ready.’ 

\- 

Rest, of course, was almost as impossible as meditation; an 'almost’, rather than a 'more’, only because Eirn knew that the option existed to drug herself - to shut her mind up and force her body to rest. It was an option not currently open to her - not while in Republic territory, not while they might have to move on the Empire at a moment’s notice - but it was an option, all the same. Meditation, on the other hand, could not be forced, and only shattered ever harder if one attempted to. Nervous energy was impossible to harness usefully - it distracted from its intended purpose, chittering about a million unlikely probabilities instead of focused on the one its wielder tried to turn it to, and was simultaneously self-perpetuating into eternity while impossible to bottle up, dissipating as soon as it manifested - a constant sparking static, there enough to be a nuisance but not nearly enough there to be of use. 

It was impossible not to stare at her holo, though, half hoping it would chirp with an incoming call and half dreading that it might, trying to imagine what she might say and what might be said in turn - a year and a half or so of loneliness and wishful thinking, dredged back up by whatever force had conspired to bring them all here - to this place, at this time. 

(She thought about trying it, herself - scrolled through other entries that she couldn’t bring herself to delete, relics of a life that she no longer had, and hovered over his; wondered what she might even say, were he to answer, that wouldn’t just make everything irreparably worse)


	7. Chapter 7

Making it behind Imperial lines was not, of course, the challenge - nor was it breaching what passed for their command centre, even if the Empire wasn't letting their territory go without a fight. Not that Eirn expected anything else; not that this made her any happier, especially as Lana was showing far less hesitation to cut down Imperials who got in her way than Eirn. Truthfully, Eirn would have rather kept casualties to a non-existent minimum, but- well, that was her idealism talking, the irritatingly bright-eyed optimism that Anya had infected her with (that she'd always wanted to strive for, deep down, even if it wasn't a yearning that would have won her any admiration among the Sith). 

'Your people will all be given medical treatment. Cooperate,' Eirn started, not expecting it in the slightest, 'And I will make sure you all get home. You have my word on this. Now, where is the Empress-?' 

There weren't many here, in truth - a skeleton crew, and for a moment, Eirn wondered if there was some misdirection going on. Of course, it was probable that most had been called out to the front lines, but her paranoia was a beast that was never truly sated. Quinn was conspicuously absent, too; a fact that gnawed at her, and she tried to tell herself that these things were likely unrelated. 

'You'll get nothing from me,' the commander - a Captain, by his insignia, though he looked older than M- Quinn, and probably resented him for it, 'Traitorous _scum_ -' 

In a calmer situation, Eirn might have admired his courage, levelling a pistol at two armed Sith as he did - but as it was, she had neither the time nor inclination to play games and, before Lana could involve herself, pulled the man's pistol from his hand with the Force - crushing it, after a moment, before tossing it to one side, along with the other weapons they'd pulled from his underlings. 

'I'll ask again,' Eirn repeated, keeping her tone as even as she could. Sith fury was one thing, but there was little as terrifying as a Sith who had not yet resorted to it, 'Only once. Where is the Empress?' 

(' _Eirn, Lana,  you there? We've got a problem_ -' 

It was Koth - one of the few people in the Alliance who did Eirn the favour of addressing her by name. He also had the worst timing in the Alliance - if not the entire galaxy, though Eirn had resolved not to hold him to blame for things frequently far beyond his control. 

'Koth,' Lana sighed, 'We don't have time-') 

'I've got nothing to say to you,' the Captain retorted, sneering at Eirn with something rapidly approaching disdain. 'Lieutenant,' he started to add, 'We will not be surrendering to these-' 

(' _We're picking up power spikes all round your location. Something's powering up down there. Something big._ ' 

_The weapon_. And they still didn't know where it was - or how to shut the thing down. _Fucking fantastic_. 

'Noted,' Lana replied, sharply. 'No other changes?') 

His Lieutenant, though - a tall, slightly nervous woman with her share of cybernetics - just glanced between him and Eirn (who was long out of patience with this world), before setting her face in grim determination, and- 

'Empress's lab is down that hallway,' she replied, jerking one arm to indicate one of the hallways that lead off the command centre. 'Second door on the left. Just- please, my lord- we're all just doing our jobs. None of us wants to get shipped off to the Pubs. No offence,' she finished, glancing at Dorne - or, at the very least, at Dorne's Republic armour. 

-did the one thing that Eirn had definitely _not_ been expecting.

'I'll do my best,' Eirn replied - promised, and hoped she could keep that promise. 'Thank you, Lieutenant.' 

(' _Lieutenant!_ ' Her Captain, of course, did not take this well - rounding on her, and only stopped from moving further by the fact that Lana still had her saber lit and levelled at the lot of them. 

'Lord Illte got our Tom off Ziost, sir. If she says this is for the good of the Empire, I believe her.') 

(' _Looks like the dampening field is offline, too. Weapons are all back online, so it's just a matter of time before- no, they just started shooting at each other,_ ' Koth managed, in her earpiece. ' _Evasive manoeuvres! Is the Omnicannon good-?'_

'Koth! Koth, are you there-?' Lana, of course, was instantly distracted from the mission, though not without good cause - the Gravestone was more than just a flagship, and Koth was- well, more than simply her friend.) 

('Lieutenant,' the Captain started, angrily, 'This will mean a disciplinary-' 

'If we're alive for it, sir,' she replied, apparently unfazed, 'You can tell the board whatever you want.') 

'Viper Squad is almost on our position,' Dorne added - their backup, the Republic special operations team clearing up in their wake. 'We can hold this until they arrive.' 

Shadowing them, Eirn hadn't failed to note; likely watching them, watching _her_ , there to ensure that if Eirn did turn on the Republic, that she wouldn't do so without a fight. It wasn't a thought that sat pleasantly, not least because of Dorne's admission that they carried Force suppressants. 

'Go,' Lana interrupted, before she could take that thought any further. 'We'll hold this position, and join you as soon as we can.' 

Which wasn't ideal - but Eirn knew she wasn't in a position to negotiate - with Lana, with the Empire, with the Force itself - and so she just nodded, before heading deeper into Imperial territory. 

\- 

Acina's laboratory was not difficult to find - even if Acina herself was difficult to pick out with the Force, not least because of the way the weapon's tech seemed _imbued_ with it in a way that did not set Eirn at ease in the slightest, and which clouded the Force presences of all on its surface. Iokath had always been a strange world; not even a world, technically, though it was difficult to think of somewhere with open skies as any kind of structure. Still, the Force flowed here in the manner of electricity through wiring, or water through irrigation pipes; artificially, conducted in manners that Eirn had to assume were some approximation of precise, or at least once had been, and in a far more clinical, paradoxically modern way than any ancient Sith or Rakatan artefact. 

The Empire, from what Eirn was seeing - from what she was guessing, mostly - seemed to have settled on this _hack the planet_ plan long before leaving Kaas, as well, if the Force-imbued wiring bundled through the passageways was any indication. Despite Lana's protests, Acina had come here intending to force the issue, and that was a thought that made Eirn grip her saber harder. 

The laboratory, much to Eirn's surprise, was not guarded - and for a moment, she wondered if the helpful Lieutenant had sent her on a wild gizka chase. When the door opened, though, it was to an almost-familiar sight - a storage room, like the one they'd visited with Dorne, with a Throne built against one wall that was clearly of Imperial design and recent construction but modelled rather closely on the one that had contained the remains of the last person to attempt Acina's folly. This throne's inhabitant, though, was still alive - and focused on a control panel set into one of the Throne's arms, an Imperial datapad, from the look of it, repurposed and wired into the system that Acina was attempting to manhandle. She was protected, too, by a forcefield - not a Forcefield, but a thing of mundane energy that would nonetheless fail to be felled by Eirn's lightsaber. 

Eirn entering the lab, of course, changed at least some of that - Acina looked up sharply, before immediately scowling.  'Well don't just stand there,' Acina snapped, looking sharply to the lab's other lone inhabitant - her Major, _Eirn's_ Major - who, in turn, abruptly wore an expression not unlike a deer in headlights. Quinn had always managed to rearrange his expressions promptly, of course, and it was gone as quickly as it was there, but the abrupt, surprised terror didn't fade nearly as quickly from his aura. 

There they were - there _she_ was, faced with the one person that she wanted to fight with the _least_ on this cursed sphere. He seemed to be as thrilled by this as she was, though it was little comfort - especially given the way his gaze kept flickering to his blaster (currently placed to one side, on the control panel he'd been monitoring) as though he was thinking about actually attempting to use it. 

'Major Quinn,' Eirn started - not even sure where she was going to go with this, but she wasn't about to let _this_ encounter be directed by someone else. 'I have no quarrel with you. But I can't let Acina do this.' 

'My lord,' Quinn started, speaking up - standing, _pulling_ himself into as confident a position as he could muster. It wasn't a convincing confidence - his fear radiated through the Force, and Eirn wondered which one of them, exactly, he was attempting to lie to. 'This has gone far enough. You are a traitor to the Empire, and I am asking you to stand down. Surrender peacefully, and you will be treated fairly.' 

Words that had been spoken to her before, though not by him, and for a moment, her memories of the Empire's version of _fair_ snarled unpleasantly. She extinguished her saber, though, clipping it to her belt - and, after a moment, unclipped her helmet's faceplate, too. If nothing else, it felt good to feel air on her skin - her helmet had been becoming the worst kind of claustrophobic, and being able to breathe always made life so much easier. 

(More than that, though, it humanised her; made a person, with a face, and not a nameless, monstrous Sith. Not the Wrath, nor the Outlander, but- Eirnhaya Illte-Quinn, Darth Meliora, scarred and mortal and _her_ ) 

'Malavai,' she started - looking right at him, grabbing his attention with his name, and refusing to let it go - 'Please. You know me. I have only ever acted for the best interests of the Empire. And right now, that means stopping this war before it gets started. Lower. The forcefield. Please.' 

He just looked at her, though - glanced over her, his eyes darting over her armour - assessing it, assessing _her_. It was not the stiff, almost-ceremonial armour she'd been wearing on Darth Marr's vessel, all those years ago, but the same gear she'd had on Voss - and on Kaas, for that matter, battle-worn and battle-proven, scarred by each of Vitiate's living children but paradoxically stronger, for it. It wasn't Sith, though, but one of the Alliance's own design and manufacture, as much an attempt to distance herself from the Empire and all it produced as it was a practical piece of gear. If nothing else, Eirn knew the importance of costume - of the messages it sent, the meanings it held, and- well, for Sith, the whole galaxy was expected to be their stage. 

'You lower that forcefield, _Major_ ,' Acina spat, safe for now on her fabricated throne, 'And I'll make you wish I'd left you where I found you.' 

'Malavai,' Eirn repeated, ignoring her - attempting to ignore her, and not entirely succeeding, 'Please, listen to me. What- the Empress is doing, right now, it's been tried before. But it didn't work. Iokath's own creators died because the weapon fired indiscriminately. If that happens again- everyone here will die, and the Empire will have a war on its hands it can't afford-' 

'I have total control,' Acina hissed - still tapping frantically at the control panel, though, a nervous terror propelling her movements that put lie to that statement. 'And as for _you_ , Wrath,' she added - the venom in her tone twisting up into something else entirely, at Eirn's ancient, hated, title, 'When I am finished with _you_ , you'll wish we'd executed you for Ziost.' 

The theatrical threats of Sith were nothing new, though hearing them from Acina was - and to hear such a promise made by one who had courted more than simple attention, once, made Eirn wince unpleasantly. Not just the words, but the venom with which they were spoken; this was not the verbal sparring of rival Sith, but the hatred that all acolytes were taught to nurture following an inevitable betrayal. 

_A for-real traitor, Illte. Only one of you is walking away from this._

She was saved from having to respond by an alarm blaring - a local one, contained to the control panel that Quinn was standing watch over, and which grabbed his attention from the rest of the room quite entirely. 

'Empress,' Quinn started, a note of concern in his voice, 'Synchronisation rate is rapidly decreasing-' 

'Then get rid of Illte,' Acina hissed, through clenched teeth, 'So I can _focus_ -' 

' _Stop_ this, Acina,' Eirn interrupted, ignoring that remark. 'Whoever wanted you here- fed you- bad intel from the beginning,' she started - grabbing at that piece of information, determined to make some use of it. 'There's no _way_ for you to succeed-' 

'And how would you _know_ , Wrath,' Acina growled, baring her teeth, 'Unless _you_ were the one to sabotage us-?' 

'Empress,' Quinn repeated, far more urgently, 'I am reading massive power buildup in the ancillary stations. The system can't handle this-' 

'Malavai,' Eirn repeated, switching her attempts back to him, 'Lower the forcefield. _Please_. Let me get her out of there.' 

He was looking right at Eirn, in turn, _forcing_ himself to, his eyes constantly darting away before he forced them back to hers. They seemed _\- he_ seemed, stubborn and defiant and- afraid, though Eirn found it impossible to fathom out what of. Her? Acina? The Republic? All valid things to be afraid of, in that moment - Eirn was just as terrified, of _all_ of them, in varying quantities - but most of all, right in that moment, it was dying - pointlessly, and stupidly, and utterly needlessly. 

That alarm sounding again snapped her out of it, though - shattered the moment, snapping the both of them out of whatever reverie they'd been in and prompting Quinn to immediately start tapping at his own panel. For an awful moment, Eirn was convinced that he was continuing to ignore her, that he was still going along with Acina's mad scheme - and then he wasn't, the forcefield was down and Eirn, seeing her chance, seized it with both hands. 

'Acina,' Eirn started - taking the first steps past the boundary, towards her - saber out, but not yet lit. 'This is your final chance. Stop this, before it's too late.' 

Acina, though, was barely paying her attention - had abruptly ceased her tapping at the control panel, and was staring off into some unseen distance. 

'I see it,' she whispered - her gaze distant and her focus elsewhere. 'It's- so beautiful...' 

All Eirn saw, though, was the Empress, staring off into some middle distance as the Force pulsed through and round her, flowing from the Throne, from Iokath itself, stronger than it had before - strong enough that Acina's own aura was drowned out, strong enough that for a moment, all Eirn could feel was the artificial heartbeat of this hollow world. 

'Dammit, Acina,' Eirn muttered, pushing forward - closing the space between her and the Sith Empress, half expecting Acina to finally stand or push back and half grateful she wasn't and half slowly realising that something else here was already very wrong. It was far too late to do anything about it, though, except the half-baked plan she'd already committed to. At the very least, removing Acina from the Throne would break whatever connection she had to Iokath, which was why Eirn reached out for the Empress - grabbing her by her robes and yanking her away from her counterfeit control throne, the same way Senya had once abruptly yanked her from Zakuul's throne, severing Vitiate's grasp on his once-fleet (and like the fleet, Eirn reasoned, with no input, the weapon would power down and they could have a sensible discussion, like the adults they were-) 

-but the Force, as always, had other ideas. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're on the home stretch yall i can hardly believe it


	8. Chapter 8

Acina's throne room, back on Kaas, had been everything that Eirn expected it would be, and she'd never been entirely certain how to feel about that. 

It had been a lighter, brighter room than the Council Chambers on Korriban, and endlessly closer to the populace than the Throne that Malgus had stolen - a room with a spectacular view, wall-length windows affording a view from the peak of the Citadel across Kaas City and into the jungles that surrounded it, and - distantly, but distinctly there - the Dark Temple, once one of Vitiate's most prized hidey-holes, now sealed away by command of the Sith Empire's new Empress. 

(The tower block that Eirn had once had an apartment in could be seen, from there; some other Sith called that place _home_ now, and when she'd visited this throne room in the flesh Eirn had wondered, then, if Malavai had ever continued to call it home, after her disappearance - or if he'd moved on as completely as his silence seemed to imply) 

The differences stopped there, though; that Acina's throne room lacked the gloom of the Korriban chambers simply meant that there were fewer shadows to be cast by dramatically waved lightsabers. The room was just as severe, the thrones the Council sat upon just as tall, the statuary just as imposing. It was locked just as much away from the populace as Vitiate's had been, too - beyond security checkpoints and shuttle bays, with every entrance and exit monitored and every traveller interrogated as to their business, not simply in the discreet way of the necessities of security but the overt way of the Empire - a reminder, every time, that this was not a place where visitors were allowed to belong. 

Acina was stood at one of those windows, dressed in her most formal regal garb - looking out over the city, _her_ city, hands clasped behind her back. When Eirn glanced down at herself, it was to see that she, too, had been redressed by the vision - she wore the same almost-ceremonial armour she'd worn at Darth Marr's heel, a symbol of the leash the Dark Council had forced her to accept around her neck. She'd resented it just for that - and hadn't once felt bad about abandoning most of it in some lost, forgotten corner of a Zakuulan swamp. Perhaps in a thousand years some archaeologist would stumble over it and wonder how Sith armour came to be in such a place, but Eirn knew this was a fantasy reliant on the idea that, in a thousand years, anyone would even remember the Sith had once existed.

 'I must hand it to you, Wrath,' Acina began - jerking Eirn's focus back to the Empress, 'You are nothing if not tenacious.' 

'Acina,' Eirn started - taking first one step towards Acina, then another, 'Please, listen to me. I-' 

Eirn paused, though, as she reached the windows - as she finally looked at the view, and realised that this throneroom was not the same one that she had seen on Kaas. It overlooked not the Sith capitol, but Iokath - viewed through the Force, pulsing faintly with the lifebeat of creation. Its flow, here as in reality, was not natural; was guided and directed, piped and channelled. The Force itself, bridled and brought to heel, an idea which unsettled Eirn deeply. 

'Beautiful,' Acina breathed, 'Is it not, Wrath?' 

'I am not the Wrath,' Eirn replied - shooting a glare at Acina, whose gaze was fixed on the vision of Iokath. 'Not yours, and not _his_. I left that behind when-' 

When Ziost had turned to dust; when she'd woken up on Kaas, a month later, her head full of Force-suppressants and her body limp and weak from sleep it hadn't needed. When she'd sworn that oath, on Korriban - forced to her knees in front of the Dark Council, and taken a new name, a new title - _Meliora_ , a promise and a prayer that she would not, _could_ not, let the darkness drag her down. 

'When you failed the Empire,' Acina finished, every millimetre as judgemental as she had been in that chamber. Eirn had hoped it was at least partially an exaggeration, then; an attempt to distance herself from a traitor that she'd once called an ally. Now, though, she wasn't so sure that Acina hadn't changed her mind about Eirn entirely. 

'When it demanded things of me,' Eirn replied - old fear knotting up around her throat, all the same, 'That I was no longer willing to give.' 

Acina turned her gaze to Eirn, at that - finally looking at her, her expression sharp and her eyes, yellowed by the Force, far more piercing than they'd ever been when they were blue. Acina didn't rise to that bait, though - just glared, before turning that glare back to Iokath. 

'What do you _want_ , Meliora? And don't give me a speech,' she added, her gaze flicking back to Iokath. 

'You know what I want,' Eirn replied. 'What I've always wanted. For there to be some- _sanity_ in the Empire. For the Sith not to- continually pick wars they can't win.' 

' _You_ are Sith,' Acina retorted, 'Even if you have turned on the rest of us.' 

'I haven't turned on you, Acina,' Eirn interrupted. 'But you won't- _listen_. All you see in this place is- weaponry, conquest. Dreams of an Empire that you'll never have.' 

'I _have_ an Empire,' Acina hissed - snarled, defensively, bristling like a cornered, wounded cat, claws out and teeth bared. 

'No you don't,' Eirn retorted - not on firm ground in the slightest, but pushing forward anyway. 'If you did, you'd be there, ruling it, instead of trying to distract the few worlds you _do_ have with the prospect of more war they can't afford. You called my position weak,' she added, jabbing an accusatory finger, 'But here you are, gambling what you don't have on something you can't control.' 

Acina just snorted to that, though. 'Jealousy,' she replied, 'Does not become you, Meliora. I understand Iokath more than you know. The people who built this place,' she added, 'Failed for the same reasons people always fail. They were weak, short sighted.' 

' _You_ are being short-sighted,' Eirn interrupted, not letting her finish. 'The data you were working from was incomplete. It-' 

'And how, Meliora, would you know that?' It was Acina's turn to interrupt - with a question, at that, which was at least as much an accusation. 

That wasn't a question that Eirn wanted to answer, not least because it would be taken as the hostile act it had been.

'Lana broke into your network when we met to speak. I-' 

'I should have known,' Acina snorted. 'You are your Master's student, Meliora, I'll grant you that much. Though even Baras wouldn't have-' 

'We don't have time for this, Acina,' Eirn snapped, interrupting her again. 'Whoever fed you that information,' she added, not waiting for Acina to respond, 'Sent the same, incomplete, data to us and the Republic. They wanted us all here, at the same time. They want a war, which none of us can afford and which you are going to start if you don't- shut up, and-' - and she paused at that, finally - looked around the vision of Acina's throne room, before gesturing at it helplessly - '-shut down whatever- _this_ is.' 

'And I'm supposed to believe this? From _you_?' To say that Acina did not believe her was an understatement; if anything, the Empress actually found the proposition laughable, given the way her face split into a joyless smile. 

'It would be nice,' Eirn replied, though, utterly exasperated, 'Yes.' 

'It would be, wouldn't it,' Acina mused - smiling playfully to herself, as inspiration apparently struck her. 'Having done all the ground work to get an interface with Iokath's systems created, I simply... step aside. Perhaps to let someone else take charge. You,' she finished, 'Or perhaps _Lord_ Beniko,' - her emphasis on Lana's own title as snide, in that moment, as Eirn's use of it was. 

'What?' Eirn replied - managed, before adding, 'No, Acina, I-' 

That was as far as she got, though, before she realised Acina had drawn her lightsaber - hadn't just drawn it, but lit it, her own blade the same bright, cold, artificial purple that Eirn's had once been - hadn't just lit it but struck at Eirn, taking her entirely by surprise, plunging it into the younger Sith before extinguishing it again just as abruptly. 

It wasn't the first time that Eirn had been on the receiving end of a lightsaber blow; it wasn't even the first time she'd taken one to the gut, though that didn't make it any easier to handle.  She crumpled, too much in pain to do anything else - staggered unevenly as her body sagged under its own weight, before eventually ending up collapsed gracelessly on the floor, gasping in pain and grabbing at whatever she could manage to try and- (do what, exactly?) and only succeeding in blinking out surprised, pained tears. 

( _This is just a vision_ , she tried to tell herself, _it's not real, the pain isn't real- push past it, Illte-_

-but all she could think about was Asylum; Arcann's taunts in her ear and the wind in her hair and Vitiate, ever-present, sneering at her weakness) 

'To think,' Acina murmured, 'I once admired you, Wrath.' 

_How do you walk away from such power?_

_(Dzwol shâsot-,_ Eirn repeated, to herself - closing her eyes to help her focus, biting her tongue- not that this helped,  - _jontû châtsatul-_ ) 

**[DO NOT INSULT US SO]**

For a long moment, Eirn wasn't sure she hadn't misheard something - a voice that ground along the base of her skull, echoing like shouted whispers in the Valley of the Dead, equal parts fear and misheard terror conspiring to create something that had no basis in reality. The pain, though, was numbing - still there, still pinning her to the spot on the ground she'd crumpled to, but- distant, all the same, an echo of the wound that Arcann had once dealt her. Her body still bore the scar from that one; a reminder from her once-Emperor that he could end her life as easily as he could save it, a promise and a threat all at once. Like all her scars, though, it was more than that - it was proof not just of the power that others had once had over her, but that she had, despite it, survived. 

'What?' Acina was looking around - her saber out and lit, again, but her focus was _not_ on Eirn. 'Who's there? _Show yourself!_ ' 

**[YOU SPEAK OF WRATH]** that voice intoned, and Eirn couldn't help but instinctively bristle at the word. **[YET ALL YOU POSSESS IS FEAR.]**

It reminded Eirn unpleasantly of an entity the Dread Masters had attempted to enthrall - of the- _thing_ they'd fought on Belsavis, malevolence puppeting corpses and which hadn't been defeated so much as- chased away, a not-quite-ending in that tale that she'd never been alright with. It spoke with that same sort of ancient, arrogant malevolence - an impersonal hatred of any being that tried to wield it, and the standards to which no mortal - or immortal - could ever hope to measure up. 

'I said,' Acina repeated - her voice starting to take a turn for the frantic, ' _Show yourself_ -' 

(Outside the window, Iokath was starting to fracture; the vision blurring and darkening, light fading in a way that it never did on that world) 

'Acina,' Eirn started, croaking a little as she tried to pull herself together - wincing as she tried to move, the real-unreal pain in her gut flaring for a moment as her lizard-brain remembered it was there, 'Iokath can't be controlled. It needs to be shut down. _Now_ -' 

**[IOKATH IS TO BE CLEANSED OF THE UNWORTHY]** the echoing voice interrupted - making her pain flare, again, as she cringed at the alien sensations. 

' _No_ ,' Acina interrupted - shrieked, almost, 'Iokath is to be cleansed of the _Republic_ -' 

Acina's throne room abruptly fell away at that, though - her control of this place apparently abruptly ceasing altogether, replaced with some kind of alien cathedral that Eirn had no frame of reference for - a grand throne room, yes, but nothing like any she'd walked before. What got her attention, though, were the statues; they had to be ancient, if they were a part of this place, but they had a familiarity about them that nagged at her unpleasantly, as though she'd seen them in some other place before this. 

**[ALL ARE AS UNWORTHY]** the voice intoned - echoing about this chamber, claws dragging along the stone floor - 

(an attitude that reminded Eirn, dimly, of the Intelligence that they'd encountered here before; a machine, though she'd never managed to puzzle out if it too was as imbued with the Force as so much else here seemed to be, and she wondered for a moment if this was some remnant of _that_ -) 

\- **[AND WE BEGIN THE CLEANSE WITH YOU]**


	9. Chapter 9

The first, and loudest, things that registered in the moments after that one, were the alarms - loud Imperial klaxons, that made pain flare behind Eirn's eyes and in the spaces just behind her ears; the lights, both the standard yellow fittings flickering ominously as the ground shuddered from the force of some unseen explosion, and the red alarm lights from the console flashing ominously in tune with the klaxons. She tried to breathe, and immediately regretted it, if only because of the lingering phantom pain in her gut - her lizard-brain's insistence at having been dealt some near-fatal wound there, and the memory of the one that Arcann once had.

There were other sounds, too - noises, shouts, voices that she'd rather not have immediately recognised, in tones she wished they weren't using. Dorne ('- _your hands where I can see them, now_ -'), tense and- scared, almost frightened; ~~Mal~~ Quinn ('- _urgent medical attention,_ Captain _-_ '), just as tense and more audibly terrified; Lana, in her earpiece ('- _target the closest arrays. And do try not to-_ '), not as easily readable but Eirn's first and last guesses would have been that fear was strangling _her_ , too.

Eirn winced, trying not to move and trying _to_ move - to raise her head, and succeeded only in letting out a noise that was somewhere between a pained groan and regret that her only noise was a pained groan. She breathed; she hesitated, she closed her eyes for a moment and attempted to gather her strength, only to open them to see that Dorne had moved closer to her - still had her weapon trained on ~~Ma~~ Quinn, but was at least half-focused on Eirn.

'Commander! Are you alright?' Dorne didn't sound very reassured by the fact that Eirn was at least conscious enough to be making incoherent noises - though in truth, it wasn't something that reassured Eirn, either.

(There were more voices - Republic accents, people she didn't recognise taking up Dorne's order that ~~Mal~~ Quinn put his kolto spray down and his hands up. He was still refusing, in turn; first ignoring them, and then snapping at one of the soldiers that he was a medic, trying to do his job-)

'I'm fine,' Eirn lied, automatically - the phantom pain in her gut was refusing to fade, and had been joined by a decidedly less phantom pain in her chest. When she finally struggled into a sitting position, it was impossible to miss the new sear on her armour - or that Acina was sprawled face-down on the floor, her robes singed and flesh, where the robes had burned away, apparently the source of that charred stench. ~~Mala~~ Quinn was attempting to attend to her, in turn, though his efforts were being hampered somewhat by the Republic soldiers, one of whom had attempted to confiscate his medkit, while another ran what Eirn assumed was their own medical scanner over the fallen Sith.

'Acina?' she added, uncertainly - staring at the Empress, for a long moment. Acina's death was not what Eirn had come here seeking - quite the opposite, despite what the Empress had seemed convinced of. Her aura was a faint, flickering thing, all but lost against the background noise of the chaos that had taken over the makeshift laboratory.

'The Empress is alive, for the time being,' ~~Ma~~ Quinn volunteered - earning himself the threat of a retributive smack from the overzealous Private, though the glare Eirn shot them stopped it being anything further. 'If these brutes will let me do my job, she may even survive.'

'Captain Dorne, sir. We've secured the bunker, but it's taking hits from-' Another Republic accent, belonging to another Republic soldier, grabbing Eirn's attention from Quinn and Acina - one of the team that had been following in their wake, clutching an automatic rifle and pausing as the structure abruptly shuddered under a hit from some unknown, unseen force. 

Eirn didn't like to think about the kind of firepower that would be needed to make Iokath heave like that - especially given as this place had been constructed from scratch. Not for the first time she remembered the automated repair and defence drones that had impeded their first expedition here, and wondered, at that, just how many times this place had been rebuilt.

'Who's firing on us?' Dorne started, the mirror-smoothness of her aura sparking, for a moment, with a sort of irritated fear. 'Surely the Empire aren't-?'

'It's not Imperial fire, sir,' the soldier replied. 'It's taking out everything in the air - us, the Imps, anything that tries to move.'

'Iokath's defences,' Eirn interrupted, before the Pubs could get any further. 'Acina triggered them when she tried to access the system.' She paused, at that - looked over Acina again, before adding, 'Quinn's a medic. Let him work. The last thing we need is the Empire using her as an excuse to make this worse.'

That went down about as well as Eirn expected it to, though her words were apparently of some reassurance to Dorne - who, at that, issued orders to the Pubs that Eirn paid no attention to. A part of her supposed, really, that she should; that if nothing else, it might silence her still-rowdy paranoia that Dorne wasn't about to attempt to place her under arrest. It would have been a foolish action, of course, but the Republic could be as foolish, when it wanted to be, as the Empire. 

' _Oh, there you are. Thought you'd gone offline for a minute, there._ ' There was another voice in her earpiece, too - one whose owner she was going to have to take to task, later, but there were more important things at hand, for now.

'Shan,' Eirn sighed - regretting using his name as soon as she'd said it, but unable to take it back, 'We don't have time for this. Acina's-'

' _-Triggered the failsafes, I know, I heard. Got some good news for you, though. I've been able to trace the source of the signals. I'm sending you the coordinates now for what looks like the control centre. The_ real _control centre._ '

_What looks like_. Eirn found it difficult to repress a snort at that phrase, but she managed, for now. The map she called up on her holo displayed the coordinates; not within hiking distance, at least not at this kind of notice, but that was the least of their problems.

'Alright. See if you can- shut it down remotely, or- something,' Eirn replied - probably an impossibility, but issuing orders phrased almost like requests allowed her at least a pretence of authority. 'And I'll- try from this end,' she added - from the real controls, if she could get to them. And use them without being electrocuted or possessed.

' _Can't promise anything,_ ' Shan replied - which, Eirn finally realised, was a long way of saying _no_. ' _Keep on this channel. I'll let you know if we hit any more snags._ '

Any more snags, Eirn sighed, like whatever owned that ominous voice deciding to show up and ruin her day. ARES, perhaps; she'd thought the AI destroyed, but on reflection, perhaps it had been optimistic to hope that she had any enemies who might actually take the hint when she killed them. 

She finally pulled herself to her feet, at that thought - pausing only as the ground shuddered from another hit, the lights flickering again as the power surged, and not for the first time, Eirn wondered if the Empire hadn't come here on a suicide mission. Not that she'd never been sent on those - or survived them, much to Baras's chagrin, but Acina's singlemindedness was something other than Baras's own zealotry.

'Well?' Lana had arrived, too - was looking at her expectantly - and not without a small amount of irritation, though that was something Eirn was content to ignore for now. 

'You heard that,' Eirn replied - Lana had been privy to the conversation, even if she hadn't joined in. 'I'm going to see if I can shut the defences down. You should stay here,' she added, before Lana could object, 'Assist the Republic where necessary, and be prepared to evacuate once the defences are shut off.'

If nothing else, Eirn knew that she could trust that Lana would care more for the Empire's interests than the Republic's - even if she couldn't trust that Lana would bother to care too much about the people under the Empire's command. Sith, after all, cared only for results, and Lana was as Sith as they came.

'Evacuate? We should be taking control,' Lana hissed, taking a step closer - closing the distance between them, and lowering the volume as though this might hide her own agenda from those around them, 'Not-'

'I know,' Eirn interrupted - they didn't have the time for this, a thought that lingered unpleasantly as the base shuddered from another hit. 'But if I can't take them offline permanently then as long as we're here, we're at risk of everyone getting killed. We need to regroup somewhere safe, and that means outside of this... thing,' she finished, gesturing unhelpfully.

There were other reasons, and Eirn had no idea if Lana had cottoned on to any of them - and there were far too many listening ears in their immediate vicinity to voice them. Lana kept glaring for a moment, as stubborn as Eirn was - and then relented, nodding sharply.

'Very well,' she replied. Lana didn't seem happy about this in the slightest, but Eirn was losing the ability to blame her for this. Perhaps if they'd allied with Acina, she might have been more inclined to listen - perhaps the only foe they'd have to deal with was the Republic, perhaps- a thousand _perhaps_ es, none of which were helpful.

~~Ma~~ Quinn had finally been wrestled away from Acina's side; was standing, now, his arms crossed defiantly in front of him, as though refusing to submit to cuffs (as though not being cuffed) somehow made him less of a prisoner in his own base. 

(Acina was still being attended to, albeit by a Republic medic; was still alive, though Eirn didn't try to guess how long it would be before something about that changed)

' _Major_.' Eirn disliked addressing him by rank - by _that_ rank, as much as a part of her still felt a pride at his promotion. She had no doubt it had been well-earned - and was simultaneously hurt, all the more, that he'd cared more about the accolades the Empire offered than- his so-called _wife_.

He paused, at that - bristled, visibly bracing himself for- something, it was impossible to tell quite what, though he clearly expected absolutely nothing pleasant.

'My lord,' he just replied - looking at her and not-looking-at-her, his expression as unreadable as he could make it. It was one that Eirn knew well, though; underneath it, he was trying to work out how likely she was to execute him there and then, and the idea that he found such a notion contemplatable at all did _not_ sit comfortably.

'Would I be correct in assuming,' Eirn replied - playing pretend, for a moment, that he was an ordinary Imperial, and nothing more, 'That you are the effective ranking officer, here?'

His posture, his expression, tightened _further_ at that, and Eirn wasn't sure if he was more insulted or terrified. 'You would be, my lord,' he replied, though - an admission that gave him at least a little value, even if he seemed to have just as little faith that it might save him.

Eirn just nodded, silently; glanced away for a moment, having to gather her own steel before plunging on. 'In that case,' she replied, 'I am officially asking you to order your people to stand down. The Alliance did not come here for a war. And all of us have bigger concerns right now.'

'The Empire,' he replied, his top lip curling in disgust - entirely predictably, and in his place, Eirn knew, she'd be replying with exactly the same words, despite their unhelpful idiocy, 'Does not _surrender_.'

'I am not asking you to surrender, Major,' Eirn replied, 'I am asking you to stand down.' A technicality; their command centre was occupied, their Empress was in the care of a Republic medic. 'Empress Acina triggered Iokath's defences,' she repeated - at least, that was the best understanding of it that she could grapple with at that moment. There was probably some finer point or distinction that she was missing, but Eirn had neither the information to clarify this nor the time to find it. 'Iokath is targeting everyone, including the Empire. We can't afford to be fighting between ourselves.'

She was beginning to feel a bit like a stuck record, too - the same words in the same order in the same places to almost the same people, with predictable results. Imperial pride was almost as foolish and vain as Sith pride was; the only thing that kept it from being equal, truthfully, was the way that Sith pride demanded Imperials diminish themselves in its service. 

It didn't help that he kept staring at her with that accusatory, tightly-wound expression - as angry as it was afraid, her apparent betrayal of the Empire apparently infuriating him more than her survival of all that Zakuul had thrown at her brought him any kind of joy or respite. It hurt just on its own; that not only had circumstances conspired to keep them apart for so long, only to reunite them under such poor circumstances, but that he was more angry with her choices than he was anything else. Eirn knew it was an unhelpful reaction on her part - and a distraction, to boot, but it was one that gnawed at her awareness all the same. 

'I will do- everything in my power,' she added, 'To make sure you all get home safely. Including- you, and the Empress. But right now that means I need you to tell your people to stand down, before anyone else gets hurt.' 

Which was as much a threat as it was a promise, and she knew it (she hated it, even as she knew she had to make it). Neither the Alliance nor the Republic were about to back down, after all, and the Empire was not known for making wise choices when it came to being both outnumbered and outgunned. If anything, the Empire revelled in its status as the underdog - the upstart, defending itself against a hostile galaxy. That idea was one that only got people killed, though - and needlessly, at that, a truth that Eirn had hated even when the Empire had been a thing she'd loved.

'It would seem,' he ground out - switching his defensive, slightly terrified glare between her and Dorne as he spoke, 'That I have very little choice.' Not, of course, that this was enough. 

'Captain?' Eirn just asked - glancing at Dorne, and unable to miss the way he reflexively responded. It made her wince, even if she did her best to smooth it over - the fact that _he'd_ once been the one she'd addressed as Captain, relied upon to back her up in the thick of enemy territory.

Dorne was blissfully ignorant of all of this, of course, and just nodded sharply, once - before pulling her comm unit, and setting it to connect. It took a moment, but Malcom was there, soon enough - the picture jumped and started, the connection hazy and interrupted, but he was there.

'Captain. Commander Illte,' he added - looking, and for that matter sounding, half distracted. 'Glad to see you're still alive. What about Acina?'

'The Empress is receiving medical attention,' Eirn replied - a statement that she knew would raise more questions than it answered, but she could fill Malcom in later, assuming they were still alive.. 'Major Quinn is her second in command.'

He didn't look happy about it, either - had wrapped himself up in a sort of angry defensiveness that Eirn had no trouble believing that he wasn't having to fake. His once-wife was a traitor, and his Empress was in the hands of his hated enemy - _he_ was in the hands of his hated enemy, and had been browbeaten into standing down - _surrendering_ , as though this wouldn't be a far blacker mark on his record than Druckenwell had been. The conversation with Malcom was blissfully brief, even if Eirn could _taste_ the bile in ~~Malav~~ Quinn's throat as he finally gave the order to stand down - never mind the way that the tension in the room somehow managed to grow a thousandfold once the surrender was official and the call was cut.

It didn't help that Quinn, throughout, just glared at her - hateful and hurting, and Eirn wasn't sure which one of those it was that cut the deepest. Not that she was innocent here, of course; quite the opposite, though this hardly made it any easier.

'Will there be anything else, my lord?' he added - a question that was more angrily snide than it was anything else, and from him, then, it was as much a dare to make it worse as it was an attack.

'Actually,' Eirn replied, though - bracing herself for more objections, and wondering if this was even a good idea, 'I need to borrow one of your shuttles.'


	10. Chapter 10

If nothing else, Dorne was far more accustomed to the interiors of Imperial shuttles than any of her comrades would have been - and far less likely to throw Eirn out at high speed than any of the Imperials on Iokath, Quinn likely included. Still, there was something uneasy about the flight over, even leaving aside the fact that they were having to fly as low under the structures of Iokath as possible in order to avoid incoming fire from its defences.

_Well, Illte, she's a defector, you're-_ you _, and this is an Imperial shuttle. It'd be weirder if she_ wasn't _unsettled by all of this._

Which wasn't a thought that sat well; that despite all her efforts to the contrary, Eirn was still managing to cause offence. Granted, it was probably the least of the things she could be accused of causing in Republic troops, but - given the precarious truce they had, never mind the one she was starting to resign herself to formalising, it wasn't a start that promised anything good.

'You said,' Dorne started, glancing at her from the pilot's seat, 'That you'd been here before. What should we expect-?'

'Not to this location. I'm _hoping_ ,' Eirn replied, sighing, 'For a clearly labelled on/off switch. Or maybe.. some kind of lever,' she added. It wasn't the reply Dorne was hoping for - she knew _that_ even before she spotted the irritation in Dorne's expression, there and gone in an instant but there, all the same.

'I'm expecting,' she added, 'Droids, or traps, or trapped droids, or...' she trailed off, gesturing with one hand. 

_Some kind of Throne. Functional furnishings, with all the trappings of Empire. Baras would have loved this place._

Dorne didn't seem either impressed or amused; quite the opposite, really, though Eirn decided not to take it personally. Eirn was more than a little out of practice when it came to working with military, though even when she hadn't been, she'd never managed to be the sort who could ever have lived up to the myths about Sith leadership the Empire was raised on. Not least because she so despised being made to lead, and not even in the humble manner of Jedi, but the I-don't-want-to-be-here manner of any unwilling conscript.

'I'll take point,' Eirn added, though - focusing up, and wishing that the Force wasn't quite so full of foreboding quiet. 'If we encounter any hostiles, leave them to me. And- no heroics, Captain. That's an order.'

Which got her another slightly odd look - Dorne's expression impenetrably bemused again, for an instant, before it was smoothed over and she nodded, once. 'Very well.'

Dorne was apparently a woman of few words, though; she had little else to say to that, and Eirn found herself a mixture of relieved and resentful. The emptiness of the air between them just meant more time to stew; more time to gnaw on that unpleasant anticipation in the Force, more time to wonder just what it was waiting for and more time to dread what they might find waiting for them at their destination.

-

The command centre - the _real_ command centre - was everything that Eirn had been silently dreading it might be - high walls lined on one side with panels displaying text and symbols that meant nothing to her, a display made to cater for aliens so long dead that they no longer even existed in myth, and on the other, consisting of windows made of the same toughened transparent-whatever that all windows on this world were, more resilient than anything that the Alliance's databases had and thus a tempting enigma all on their own. The view out of those windows was familiar, too - was the view that had been displayed in the windows of Acina's throne room, in the vision that had left the Empress needing medical care. 

'This is it,' Eirn murmured, half to herself - though she was more than a little unsettled by the familiarity of a place she'd never been. Déjà vu was a feeling that had always put her on edge, but here, now - halls that had likely been walked by _Vitiate_ , that had already claimed blood and only seemed to want more - it screamed, a tinny, high-pitched noise that cut into her awareness like a garrotte.

'You're certain?' Dorne didn't sound particularly convinced, even as she scanned the room for hostiles (even as she found none, something Eirn couldn't help but want to argue with, all the same).

Eirn just nodded, in reply to that - tried to formulate some reply that sounded better than _I saw it in a vision_ , and came up with nothing. She'd never been in awe of visions the way that other Sith were - the way that Sith were supposed to be, the way that her mother and even her sister managed to. The Force had never once been generous with her - had never once provided aid without demanding blood, or glimpses of vital information that hadn't come at some other great cost. Acina's vision had come at a heavy price, and Eirn was self-centred enough to still feel it was a price that she'd paid - would yet pay, somehow.

There was a throne in the centre, of course; a Throne, a far more formal affair than either the makeshift chair they'd found in the armoury, or the one that Acina had set up in her equally makeshift lab. This was a seat crafted to be not just used, but seen using, to take centre stage in the kind of theatre that Eirn had never wanted any part in, and yet had still been shunted from understudy to leading lady without so much as a by-her-leave. It came with its own honour guard, too; a pair of statues, of a sort, in roughly humanoid proportions but- elongated, angular and stylised in a way that seemed unpleasantly familiar all on its own. (Humming, as all things did here, with the Force; pulsing, in time with that unnatural beat, infused with the not-quite-life that Iokath's creators had imposed on it)

'So- if this is the real control centre,' Dorne began, 'Then that must be-'

'The real control throne,' Eirn replied - ignoring it, and instead striding over to the consoles that lined the walls. She had no desire to sit in another Iokathan throne; the memories of what had happened the last time she'd sat in a Throne made here snarled at the base of her skull, threatening to force themselves into her consciousness if she picked at the sensation too much.

'You're not going to- use it?' Dorne added - keeping pace with her, even if her attention was as much on their surroundings as it was on Eirn. 

'You saw what the system did to Acina,' Eirn replied, deflecting the question. The truth was that as much as anything, she was afraid; that she too would be rejected by the system, or- worse, that her parasite had not been extinguished as fully as everyone seemed desperate to believe he had been.

The display screens were covered in symbols and lettering that meant nothing to Eirn - the same alien scripts she kept running into all over this damned place, utterly impenetrable - at least, to her. No doubt that Drellik or one of his students could have given her a translation, eventually, (and a manual, and probably an opera written in it, too), but his was an art they had no time to indulge. 

'Commander,' Dorne started, 'There's-'

**[INTRUDER. INTERLOPER.]**

Eirn had already turned, though - pulling her saber hilt to her hands, lighting it in an instant and raising it before she'd even looked to see what she was defending herself from. She barely got to see it, too - a fist, clenched and swinging at her, attached to what had been one of those so-called statues - a droid, or something like it, that fist connecting with the space that Eirn had occupied hard enough to reduce the console she'd been standing at to little more than sparking rubble, twisted metal and bleeding Force from the places in its conduits that life itself had once been bent to Iokath's will.

Eirn had dodged it, barely - stood, saber up, between Dorne and the Iokathan statuary - it, and its twin, both of which had sprung to sort-of-life. There was a static in the air that there hadn't been before - the yawning before a storm, the charge before a lightning bolt, and it was only getting worse.

'We are not,' Eirn started, 'Intruding. Iokath is under Alliance control-'

The closer of the two statue-droids interrupted her with another swing - another miss, but barely, and Eirn could _feel_ the moment that its fist slammed into the space she'd recently been occupying. The other was moving, now, as well, though - swinging on its own, and would have hit the space Eirn currently occupied were it not for the bubble of Force energy she pulled at and projected - a shield, formed as much from surprise and desperation as stubborn refusal to accede any further ground.

'I don't think they're listening, Commander.' Dorne, to her credit, was keeping remarkably even \- taking shots at the droid-statues, but they were glancing off them - not leaving so much as a scuff behind, and Eirn got the distinct feeling that her lightsaber wouldn't fare much better.

_Fucking hell._

'Alright,' Eirn started, 'New plan. I'm going for the Throne.' It was wildly stupid, but Eirn didn't see that she had options; at least one of the control panels had already been destroyed, and- well, maybe if the Throne followed suit the whole place would self destruct. Or maybe there was shielding. Or maybe she could take control - the wildest, most improbable theory of the lot.

'Commander?' Dorne started - wincing every time the droids connected with Eirn's shield, not least because she didn't seem to have much faith that it would hold. 

'Remember what I said, Captain,' Eirn replied - wincing herself, every time her bubble took a blow, if only because of the way the Force threatened to crumple underneath them every time. 'If this goes wrong, _get out of here._ '

She didn't give Dorne a chance to respond to that - just dropped her shield and propelled herself forward, grabbing at the droid's attention with the Force before ducking between them, leaving Dorne unprotected but - so the theory went - distracting the droids with her and her lightsaber. It was at least half successful - Eirn felt the blow as one of them struck the ground behind her, hard enough to leave a dent in the metallic floors of this place (would have been more than had enough to leave her a smear on that floor, had she not moved - had she not kept moving). The Throne itself was unprotected - had no forcefield, unlike the one Acina had built, and Eirn briefly wondered if she shouldn't just stab the thing and move on. That was plan D, assuming plans B and C did not work out - and she did not expire, though the droids in pursuit of her seemed intent on that. Planting herself in the Throne made her a target - made her vulnerable, made her _weak_ , and she hated it even as she did it, even as she steeled herself and looked back at the advancing guardian droids and wondered, not for the first time, if she wasn't about to become Iokath's latest failed would-be heir.

For a moment, nothing happened; for a moment, Eirn was acutely terrified that nothing _would_ happen, that she had made some huge mistake, that the system wouldn't just reject her but fail to respond entirely, that she really was about to become a smear of ex-Sith, care of Iokath's defences. After that moment, though, the Throne reacted - the same way the one on Zakuul had, the Force itself snarling as it wound itself up into a ball - braced itself, and then- _plunged_ into Eirn, stabbing into her like a wave of electricity snaking up directly into her brain, clawing at the back of her skull and sinking its teeth into her nerves, and she couldn't even scream so much as just make some undignified grunting, seething noise as she reflexively tried to force out whatever sort-of-consciousness it was that still powered Iokath, that wanted to communicate with her by forcing itself onto and into her, and as she wrestled with it - pushing back its grasping tendrils, fighting its insistence that it force itself in by pushing back on it, reaching for the place it had barrelled into her and forcing it back through - forcing _herself_ though, in turn, reaching out into Iokath itself and screaming (did she scream, or did she imagine it?) as it clawed at her, in turn, all the way in-

\- and then it wasn't. And then it didn't. And then she saw.

-

It wasn't so much opening her eyes as just- opening her awareness, Iokath manifesting itself as visible but- bypassing her eyes, bypassing all of her senses, interfacing directly with her consciousness, its artificial attunement to the Force interacting with her own, far more natural sensitivity. She could see it, too; the whole Sphere, pulsing with the beat of its artificial heart, every nook and every cranny, every droid, every unattended storeroom, every biosphere, every data module, every long-unoccupied dwelling, every long-unfarmed field. There were wilds, if one could call them that - biospheres, big enough to have contained whole continents, used as much as holiday grounds as testing locations. Iokath had been more than just a weapons factory, once; it had been a world, of a sort, home to a people populous enough to rival the Empire, who had torn themselves apart-

_been torn apart_ , some unseen voice corrected her, _by a discordant few._

Which was a tale that Eirn found far too familiar for her liking, though she wondered again, at that, if she wasn't projecting her own fears onto a people long dead. The unseen voice was silent, on that notion, and Eirn's own attention was on something else altogether. It was difficult, against the background hum of Iokath (in all that space, occupied far more fully than in any other planetary system) to pick out the ripples that were being cast out by the conflict - but it was there, Iokath's own _hum_ distorted by the Empire and blotted by the Republic, surrounded by the anger and terror that followed all war - that hung over all this sphere, like some ancient, rotten, perfume, but which had collected in far fresher, brighter form in the spots where the intruders had pitched their battle.

_The defences._ Iokath, turning on the invaders who scuttled on its surface, warring over its hidden treasures. _They need to be disabled_ , she added - Eirn added, half realising that her own thoughts were just as voiceless, here, and, simultaneously, not even needing _to_ be voiced.

_unworthy_ , the unseen voice asserted, a word - a _sentiment_ \- that Eirn had struggled against her whole life. Unworthy as a Sith, heir to a legacy millenia old. Unworthy of her mother's line, ancient Sith nobility that had whispered in the ears of Emperors for as long as there had been others to conquer. Unworthy of her lightsaber, unworthy of her apprentice, unworthy of love, unworthy of Baras and Vitiate, unworthy of the Dark Council, unworthy of the Zakuulan throne, unworthy of Iokath's inheritance, unworthy, _unworthy-_

'There will never be any,' Eirn murmured, half to herself, ' _worthy_ , will there?'

_unworthy_ , the unseen voice repeated - a record, stuck repeating the same track until some enterprising Sith could flick the needle. ARES had hurled that word at them, over and over - unworthy of the creators. Unworthy of Iokath. Unworthy of the death and destruction that could be rained on any sky she pleased. Unworthy of the carnage that could be caused at the flick of a wrist. Unworthy of the sort of death on the sort of scale that only Vitiate and his ilk had ever caused or matched.

'If being like him is what it is like to be worthy,' she added, at that thought - words bubbling out of her as soon as they formed, 'then I would rather not be.'

_Submit_ , Acina's voice echoed, _or be destroyed_. ( _All you need to do_ , Vitate's memory echoed, _is kneel_.)

That was the Sith way, was it not? To take what one wanted, regardless of the needs or desires of others; to stamp one's mark upon the galaxy, to carve one's name into sacred rock in the hope that it might be remembered in the millenia that would follow your bones crumbling into dust. Power, for power's sake; war, for war's sake.

_No. I will be-_

('I will be better than that,' she remembered saying - holding herself high, meeting every judgemental gaze in the Council's chamber. 'You all knew me once as Baras's puppet. As _Vitiate's_ puppet. No longer. I will serve the Empire, as I have always served the Empire, but I will be no Sith's apprentice, no Councillor's puppet. Nor will I sit contentedly on another's throne, watching as the galaxy unravels. If you would execute me for that, then you do so to protect your own cowardice. Nothing more.')

(a speech, to be sure; one she'd written and rewritten more times than she'd had time for, but Sith theatrics were far from a foreign art, for her)

Iokath, though-

(and she could see it all, again; the whole Sphere, stretching seemingly infinitely in all directions; she knew better than that, but the size of this place was still far more than she could grapple with, even seeing it all laid out in front of her - a system's worth of worlds, and more, and all in a single space, dedicated to a single purpose:)

_a new purpose_ , Eirn instructed it - reaching out, finally, to touch the beating heart that lay at Iokath's centre. Its sun, or something like it; the star around which the worlds that had built this place had once orbited, and which was now trapped and sheltered in its walls. _a_ worthy _purpose._

It resisted, because of course it did; an alien heart, marching to the beat of a drum long dead and a purpose long unfulfilled, plundered by monsters and conquerors who had proven themselves _worthy_ with the blood of worlds and the bodies of countless thousands. 

_ARES judged me unworthy_ , she reminded it \- ARES, the last guardian of this place: its keeper, its sentinel, whose shell had broken in the same way that an untold number of droids had, whose mind had been lost when his circuits dimmed and his power ran out - expiring, whatever Force-imbued technology that had driven him broken beyond repair. _I proved him wrong. The Alliance proved him wrong. I command the Gravestone. I have defeated all that you judged worthy. I am worthy of Iokath. Let me in._

-

'-Commander, can you hear me-?'

All Eirn was aware of, though, was the smell of kolto - and the sensation of soft, slightly dampened gauze being pressed against her nostrils, hampering her ability to breathe and sending a spark of fear and adrenaline through her that almost - _almost_ \- resulted in Dorne being thrown across the throne room.

It was a response she grabbed in time, though - reined in, blinking and wincing at the light (at her light-headedness, at Dorne's close proximity, at the gauze being held to her face, at the alarms that were still going off, somewhere)

(' _-are you reading this? we're not getting any response-'_ Shan was buzzing in her ear, interrupted by static that hissed and scraped at her awareness like fingernails down a blackboard.

' _-went to the coordinates you gave her, Theron. If she's in trouble_ -' Lana, buzzing just as much, though both were interrupting by hissing static that did nothing to improve the urgency of their tones)

'Captain Dorne,' she started, slowly - wondering when the hell Dorne had pulled her facemask off, or _why_ , and only getting a mouth half-full of gauze for her trouble. It tasted of kolto - and _blood_ , which boded poorly on any day, never mind this one.

'Easy, commander,' Dorne started - her aura as impenetrable as ever, but her voice full of concern, smothered over fear. 'The interface seems to have been... gentler on you than it was with the Empress. Still, you should be careful. Hold this in place,' she added, as Eirn reached up to the gauze - as Eirn touched it, gingerly, and found it not just slightly damp but _sticky_ , as much with blood as with kolto.

Eirn just nodded, and then wished she hadn't, as her nose throbbed and something lanced through her head, just behind her eyes. In her earpiece, Lana and Theron were still arguing \- punctuated by bursts of static, the latter of which did nothing to help her focus.

' _Alliance_ ,' Eirn sighed, prodding at the comm panel on her gauntlet, 'Illte here. What's your status?'

' _Thank the- where are you? Did you find the control centre? What did you do-?_ ' Lana, of course, launched immediately into a laundry list of questions, a habit that would make any Sith mother proud.

(Dorne, once she was satisfied that Eirn was holding the gauze in place, took a step back; if nothing else, she seemed acutely aware that she was crowding the Sith - not to mention in far-too-close proximity to the Throne's guard-droids, which had re-assumed their positions flanking the Throne itself)

'I think so,' Eirn replied, after a moment - gingerly pulling the gauze away, to see that she'd apparently been bleeding into it. A heavy nosebleed, too, apparently; not a normal side-effect of Force visions, but- well, this was hardly a _normal_ set of circumstances. 'It... I'll fill you in later,' she sighed - once she'd had a chance to process what had happened for herself. No doubt that the Republic wouldn't take it well - Lana _definitely_ wouldn't, but this would hardly be their first disagreement.

'We should be safe to evacuate,' she added, though. 'Make sure the Republic and the Empire clear out, as well. Drag them out, if you have to.' The Empire wouldn't give up without a fight - would be all the more inclined to dig in, in the face of Acina and Quinn's capture, and Eirn just hoped that what remained of their command structure was intelligent enough to see that this was a lost battle.

' _No argument here. See you topside, commander._ ' Shan cut in before Lana could reply, and Eirn wondered, for a moment, if there was some further issue waiting for her with the- _Republic_ , of all people. It was a worry that would have to linger; they didn't have the time to get into it, especially since- well, especially since her medic and pilot, _both_ , was also loyal to the Republic.

' _We'll meet you on the Gravestone, then. Agent Beniko out._ ' Lana, who had never loved the titles that others gave her, had settled for _agent_ on her own; Eirn supposed it could have been far worse, but had never once been reassured by Lana's reluctance to accept one that implied authority - or accountability.

Dorne's attention hadn't wandered from her for a moment, of course; in part, Eirn had to assume, because she was listening to the half of the conversation that Eirn was having ( _extracting information from it_ , her paranoia insisted, _gathering proof, proof that she will hold against you_ -). In part, though, it was because she was doing her job; running a medical scanner over Eirn, frowning faintly to herself at its readings, in between snatching wary glances at the statue-droid-things that had, in the interim, returned to their positions beside Iokath's Throne. 

'You were successful, then?' Dorne began, slowly - as wary in her regard of Eirn as she was of Iokath. It was a wariness that Eirn simultaneously shared and was set on edge by - a vicious, self-perpetuating loop of nervous fear that she hated more every second that it lasted.

'For now,' Eirn replied, nodding, before wincing again, and wishing she hadn't; glanced at the not-statues just as warily as Dorne was, and wasn't reassured in the slightest by the fact that they'd gone back to being as still as everything else in this place. 

'In that case, we should return immediately. My scans show no serious damage from your- encounter,' Dorne started - apparently nearly as lost for words as Eirn was, 'But without knowing how long the defences will remain offline-'

'I know,' Eirn sighed \- dabbing the gauze at her nose again, and not reassured in the slightest when it came back with fresh, bright blood. 'We should move.'

( _purpose_ , the voice murmured. _freedom_.)


	11. Chapter 11

Eirnhaya slept, once back aboard the Gravestone, more soundly than she had in weeks - curling up under thick blankets in thin pyjamas and letting exhaustion get the better of her. She slept dreamlessly, too; or at the very least, if her sleeping mind had anything to say for itself, it was left unremembered, with not so much lingering as the mere awareness of having dreamt. When she woke, it was late in the day - at least by other people's standards, though Eirn had never judged mornings to be of nearly the vital kind of importance that many did. 

The Alliance's four most senior personnel present at Iokath gathered, eventually, in one of the Gravestone's siderooms - a larger room, its original purpose as unknown almost every other on the ship, but its current one was a meeting room. The table they were gathered round could seat far more than four; all of them were crowded around one end, and Eirn couldn't help but feel trapped because of it. It was irrational, but her mind was still half asleep and half on high alert - incapable of ignoring the looming urgency that kept humming in the Force, and entirely unwilling to acknowledge or act on it.

Lana was taking the lead on it, as she frequently did - bringing Eirn, Koth and Theron up to speed on everything that had transpired, and the current status of both the shaky truce with the Republic and the tense ceasefire that the Empire was, for now, holding. For all their differences, Eirn had to admit that it was a job that Lana did well; it was easy to see, in these moments, why she'd ended up serving Arkous the way she had.

'-minor damage on most of our vessels,' Lana was saying, her attention half on her own datapad. 'But nothing that we can't repair ourselves, especially if we have- Iokath's technology available to us.'

Which was a possibility, something that Eirn didn't like to contemplate on the best of days. ( _And while we're at it_ , she could all-too-easily imagine being asked, _perhaps we should install some upgrades-_ )

'What about casualties?' Eirn asked - dreading what the answer might be, but compelled to ask all the same.

Theron just handed her a datapad, at that - which she took reluctantly, looking over its display and trying not to let her reaction make its way into her aura, never mind her expression. 

'We only have estimates for the Republic and Imperial losses,' Lana started, 'But those are being refined based on intelligence from the Republic.'

Eirn just nodded, silently; wished she hadn't asked, and put the datapad down as quietly as she could.

_They're all dead because of you, Illte. If you hadn't betrayed the Empire, if you were a better negotiator, if you'd ever been any good for anything other than your thick skull and your clenched fists-_

'We should- check for survivors, as soon as it's safe. The longer the downed ships are left...' Not, even as she said that, she expected there would be many. Sith might not care for Imperial lives, but Imperials themselves were generally loathe to leave comrades behind - and the Republic, from what she could tell, were much the same. 

'We haven't been picking up any distress signals,' Koth volunteered, from where he was sat. 'But if it was up to me, we'd already be down there.'

'We've already got a team monitoring the system defences. As soon as we're sure it's not about to turn on us again,' Lana added, shooting him a sharp look, 'We'll send down search teams.'

Which didn't fill Eirn with confidence - quite the opposite, actually, but she nodded all the same. 'Iokath's systems- _listened_ to me,' she replied, slowly - as odd an idea as that was. That Iokath was- _capable_ of listening, that there was something resembling a mind in its architecture. 'Alliance vessels should be safe.'

Should be, maybe. It was an unknown, and one that Eirn knew she should really be testing in person.

'I take it,' she added, though - changing the subject again, before she could dwell on that too much, 'that the Empire cooperated, then?'

The mere thought of which was surprising; the Empire was not prone to cooperation with the Republic, and Eirn had given it little reason to trust the Alliance, either. Then again, with their most senior commanders all captured or otherwise incapacitated, all but the most diehard Imperials would have - _should_ have - seen Iokath as a lost battle.

'For the most part,' Theron replied. 'Not all of them came quietly, but once they saw we apparently had Iokath on our side, they took the hint.'

'There were a few exceptions though,' Lana added. 'Major Quinn insisted that he would only surrender to us. He, along with a number of others, refused to cooperate with the Republic troops, and had to be brought out on Alliance vessels.'

Eirn wasn't sure what to make of that; had to repeat it to herself, silently, in an attempt to get to the end of the sentence and arrive at an accurate conclusion. 

'I... see,' she replied, eventually. 'Where is he now?'

'Here,' Lana replied, 'Aboard the Gravestone, in secure quarters. Most of the personnel we recovered are in the brig, but-' She paused, for a split second; glanced to Theron, barely (who, in turn, had glanced at Lana, just at slightly) '-it seemed prudent to arrange for some privacy.'

That just made Eirn wince; both the assumptions that were being made about her attachments and her actions, and the unpleasant gratitude that snarled around it that she wouldn't be forced to ask for it. That Lana, despite their differences, despite her silence on Quinn's presence on Iokath, at least cared enough to afford Eirn this small consideration.

She breathed, though; made herself breathe, realised she'd been staring numbly at the space between her hands and wished, for another long moment, she had a caf. If nothing else, it would give her something to focus on, something to _do_ \- an excuse for silence, a shield with which to protect what little remained of her ego.

'I will... speak with him shortly,' Eirn replied, eventually - finding that this was not a development she was happy about, not least because of how little power she had over it. 

'What about the Republic?' she added, hoping that dropping him as a topic would draw the focus away from her personal issues. 'Captain Dorne is back with her people. Did we pick up any other stragglers?'

'We did pick up some Republic personnel,' Lana replied, nodding. 'Those not needing immediate medical care were returned to the Republic fleet last night. Commander Malcom,' she added - saving Theron from having to do this, apparently, 'Has invited you to a debrief on his flagship.'

Eirn couldn't help but feel like walking onto any Republic ship could never be anything but a trap, despite their shaky truce - despite the firepower that the Gravestone brought to any fight, despite the recognition of her authority that Iokath had apparently given. She could feel herself hovering at the edge of a paranoid whirlpool, the acute fear she nursed of being dragged to Coruscant in chains nipping at her thoughts.

'And- the Empress?' Eirn started, not entirely able to shake that train of thought. 'She's in Republic custody?'

'Far as we know,' Theron replied, apparently taking lead on this one. 'Last any of our guys saw of her, she was being treated by their medics.'

Well. Here was to hoping that Republic medicine was at least as good as Imperial. The Empire, Eirn reflected, would hate this; Acina captured by the Republic, and Quinn surrendered to the Alliance. It was a miracle that they hadn't attempted some ill-fated rescue mission - or suicide run, though she supposed there was still time for that.

_Or maybe they're hoping that you'll keep your promise._ And then: _What are the promises of treacherous Sith worth, these days?_

'Please advise Commander Malcom,' Eirn replied, slowly, 'That I'd like to speak with her, if possible.' If nothing else, she might finally be able to force Acina to shut up long enough to _listen_. 

(That, and a part of her couldn't instinctively mistrust the idea that the Republic would treat her well; would treat _any_ Sith well, but especially their Empress. It was a mistrust borne of a lifetime's worth of propaganda, yes, but one that nagged at her, all the same, and one that Eirn knew would never be satisfied until she'd spoken with Acina for herself)

'You realise she's probably in a kolto tank,' Theron replied, 'Right?'

'Probably,' Eirn replied, slightly absently. But she still needed to make sure that Acina was alive - that the Empire weren't going to end up with a gilded excuse to strike back at the Republic. Not that the Empire ever _needed_ much excuse, but Acina's death would give them one that wouldn't be satisfied until the Senate tower lay truly ruined.

'Look,' Koth started, before she could add anything further - before anyone else could respond. 'This is all great, but if we're safe to start looking for survivors, I want to get on that.'

Lana was the one who nodded in response to that, to Eirn's surprise - added an 'Of course,' before making some unseen note on her own datapad. 'If that's everything-?'

-

_I will find you. Even if it kills me._

It hadn't, though, had it? He was there, on the Gravestone - she'd found _him_ , quite by accident, and all he'd wanted to do was talk about- the _Empire_ , a thought that made Eirn snarl all by its own. 

She was in her quarters again, alone; lying on her bed, her datapad lazily hanging in the air above her as she read and re-read the words which had haunted her ever since she'd first seen them. It had been on this very ship, though not in this room; curled in a corner of the main hold, scrolling through her mail on a borrowed datapad - five years of pleas into the void, five years of junk mail, five years of watching as people who tried to contact her slowly lost hope and gave up - and one, _one_ lone letter from her husband, one almost-hopeless note with not a single clue to follow it as to what had happened to him.

Vitiate, of course, had loved every moment of it; took every opportunity he got to remind his errant Wrath that she was alone, feeding on her despair and stoking her nightmares - as though that hadn't made her all the more determined to not only rid herself of her once-Emperor once and for all, but to make him suffer for it, too.

But even as the Alliance's influence grew, even when her name and face were on every bounty board from Zakuul to Tatooine, even when Acina had approached her in person, inviting her to Kaas to discuss allegiances and alliances, there'd been no sign of him. Nobody had known anything. Nobody had _said_ anything. Those she asked either denied all knowledge, or just looked at her blankly - or both, and _even-if-it-kills-me_ had soured from grim determination to prophetic obituary. When on the last feast of Ancestry she'd lit another black candle, and wept, not even her sister had protested, any longer, that he might yet live - and she, of all people, knew full well that those thought lost could yet still be found.

And yet there he was, alive and well. If she reached out with the Force, she could feel him, two decks down; nervous, and- afraid, in a particularly unfocused way that she didn't remember him being since- before Oricon, as blurry and disjointed as those memories were. Afraid, but _alive_ , and he hadn't said a thing, hadn't even _tried_ , and after-

The datapad interrupted that train of angry thought, though, falling from its position above her as her anger flared and her concentration wavered, hitting her square in the face before falling awkwardly to one side. Eirn didn't fight it, though; just sighed, trying not to take as some kind of ugly omen and wondered if she shouldn't take the hint and move.


	12. Chapter 12

Knocking on the door before she entered was exactly the sort of ridiculous Eirnhaya was; this was her (Alliance's) ship, Quinn was her (Alliance's) prisoner, she would have been well within her rights to simply march in and demand satisfaction. She didn't, though; that wasn't her, what she wanted to _be_ her.

She could feel it, too; his surprise, muted, distant, but there, humming in the Force the way his emotions always had. Force-blinds in the Empire who lived and worked in close proximity to Sith learned the hard way to disguise and cloud their auras, and Malavai Quinn had largely not been an exception to this, but his masks were imperfect and, to her, just as transparent - once she knew him - as if they hadn't been there at all. His _come in_ was as cautious as it was bemused, and when she entered, Eirn wasn't much reassured to note that he was stood to attention, cautiously ready for almost anything. He still had his uniform, even if his weapons had been taken - even if his belt and bootlaces had been, too, and Eirn didn't doubt for a moment that he considered that more a humiliation than a safeguard. 

'Lord Illte.' When he looked at her, of course, he looked straight past her, his focus on whatever it was that eternally lay at some point behind her head. 

This wasn't how she'd imagined their reunion would be. There hadn't been just one fantasy, but hundreds, all variations on the same theme, all involving tears and desperation, but none of them were the knife in the gut that this was. He was there - _right there_ \- 

_Breathe, Illte._

There were a million ways she could have started this conversation, and she'd rehearsed most of them over the course of the last few days - whether it had been lying awake in that Republic base, sitting in that half-stolen Imperial shuttle with Dorne, or simply a moment's reflection on her own, between disasters. She didn't, though - start it, that was, but he had, addressing her in the worst way possible.

'Is that all I am to you?' She could hear her voice crack, and hated it; hated the total lack of control she had over her pain, over her expression of it, over _herself_. 

(The door, as she stepped inside the room, swished closed automatically; there were no guards at the door, even as the corridor itself was watched - mostly, if Eirn was being honest, because she wanted as few witnesses to this as possible)

It was impossible not to be hurt - not to be angry, not to want to lash out. The air itself twinged with a pang of nervous loneliness, when he looked at her, that Eirn was half sure was at least half hers, and all it made her want to do was flee.

'Eihn,' he started, 'I- no, of course not, I-'

Her name, by way of his accent (by way of the slight nasal quality his voice had, by way of the slight ineptitude he'd always had with Sith pronunciation - the name that he, and only he, called her). It hurt; not because of what it wasn't, but because of what it was - a memory of when things had been better, things had been _good_ , of when they might not always have done completely right by each other but at least they were around to _try_.

This, Eirn could tell, was going to be a long, unpleasant conversation, and a part of her just wanted to bolt from it just because of that. She didn't, though; just looked around the quarters Quinn had been stashed in, hoping that there might be something approximating a chair she could claim for herself. She was in luck; there was not one chair but two, on opposite sides of a small side-table that didn't quite fit with the room's decor. Part of her wondered if this was Lana's doing, too, or simple serendipity; most of her, though, just didn't want to question it, and ignored the issue altogether in favour of abruptly seating herself before her legs gave out and she embarrassed herself unnecessarily. Quinn didn't join her, though - just watched her mutely, apparently frozen to the spot where he'd been making his half-protest and gripped by some incapability to continue. 

'What _happened_ to you? After I got your- message,' she started, 'I looked- everywhere I could, but-'

She paused, abruptly - lacking both the words to get her meaning across, and the desire to try and find them. She'd looked everywhere, asked everyone, and yet- there he was, months after she'd given up even begging the Force itself for answers.

'I'm- sorry,' he replied, limply, seemingly simultaneously aware of how little those words did to close the gap between them. 'I-'

He sat, finally; took the chair opposite her, even if he looked for all the world as though he'd much rather bolt from the room entirely. His attention, naturally, was on everything _but_ her - his hands, the wall, his uniform, the surface of the table, everything that wasn't the Sith who was supposed to be his _wife_.

'I- did not intend for- any of this to happen. I should have-' He kept pausing - hesitating, halting as he stumbled over his words, stealing glances _at_ her before flicking his attention back to the space around her, searching her for something that he couldn't seem to find.

Eirn wasn't sure what, if anything, she was supposed to say to that; just kept flickering her own gaze over _him_ , close enough to reach out and touch and yet- her pride kept snarling that her touch was the _last_ thing he'd earned.

'After you- after you and Darth Marr disappeared,' he continued, at her silence, 'When Zakuul- announced themselves, they did so by- accusing Darth Marr of leading an attack on their territory. The Dark Council-' he paused, abruptly - hesitating over his words, apparently, before plunging on.

'The Empire,' he amended, 'Did its best to distance itself from- both of you. The official story was that you had gone off on a wild chase, unauthorised by the Council, that- Darth Marr's actions were his alone, and you had acted in defiance of their wishes.'

'Malavai,' Eirn started, 'You were _there_ , you-'

'I know,' he interrupted, not letting her finish. 'But I was- ignored. The Empire- Zakuul claimed that- you had died, alongside Darth Marr. They had executed you, along with him. And the Empire- went along with it,' he added, slightly distantly. 'Enough Sith had- felt the passing of Darth Marr that they believed that you had, too. I admit that- I was- terrified it might be true. I couldn't bear the thought, but- with all that you had faced, and come home afterwards-'

He paused, finally; still not quite looking at her as he scrambled for the words to carry on. 'There were- those who were adamant you lived. Your apprentice,' he continued, 'Chief among them. But- without- you to protect them, she and her family were forced to leave Kaas, before your enemies could strike. When I resolved to find the truth, it was an undertaking I shouldered on my own.'

'Moff Lorman called me back to Kaas,' he added, sourly, 'While I was tracking down leads on other survivors from Darth Marr's vessel. I was instructed not to interfere with the official investigation,' he snarled - his own old bitterness flaring up, 'And when I refused, ended up in a labour camp on Dromund Fels. The Empire,' he finished, flatly, 'Did not wish to know the truth. You were more useful to them as a corpse, and I was of no use to them at all.'

'I-,' Eirn started, after a long, quiet moment - the words getting stuck in her throat, even as she tried to breathe, 'Nobody would say _anything_ -'

(but it explained, she realised, so much; that Acina had been so desperate to keep her away from the city itself, that the Sith on Odessen had breathed such a collective, if proverbial, sigh of relief when she'd failed to be seduced by Acina's overtures. They were traitors in a much more complete way than she'd realised; and she, at that, had always been a for-real traitor, even without her most recent questionable allegiance)

'So- what happened?' she added - he was there, and in uniform, and with a shiny new rank to go along with it, too. Or- had that too been a leash, this time from Acina instead of Baras?

'You, my lord,' he replied, after half a moment - glancing up to _her_ , finally, and smiling to himself, just a little. 'Following your... rescue, your name and face were back all over the holonet, and Empress Acina- or her personnel,' he added, wrinkling his nose a little in distaste, 'Decided that I could be of use to her.'

His smile faded, at that, as some sour memory overtook him. 'I was to be an advisor. A bargaining chip,' he added. 'But it meant- freedom, or something like it.'

Eirn didn't smile in return, though; just studied him, half watching the way his expression kept faltering and half entirely distracted by failed attempts to control her own. 'When was- when were you-?' she started - letting the question trail off, not least because she wasn't even certain what words she shouldn't use.

'Shortly before- Empress Acina approached you, on Voss. I- suspect that I was supposed to be-' He paused, again, wrinkling his nose a little in disgust. 'A _benefit_ of your alliance.'

'But- you weren't there,' Eirn started - rifling through her memories, though, grabbing at them for the umpteenth time as though there was something she should have known, something she should have _felt_. 'I- when I came to Kaas, I _asked_ her, specifically-'

_And she knew, and she lied to your face, Illte. Why did you ever think she could be trusted? (Are you glad, now, that you didn't?)_

'I... that was- my fault. I-' he admitted, after a moment - before hesitating, shame and embarrassment welling up in his aura until he half-smoothed it over again with that faint pretence of calm. 'I - removed myself from your party on Kaas. As I said, it was- shortly after my- release. I was- not in the- best of shape. I- could not bear for you to see me- like that. And I-'

He kept pausing - had gone back to staring at the table between them, unable to make himself even look at the space behind her head. 'I had- assumed that- despite your disagreements with the Dark Council, that- given your- that considering your- substantial ties to the Empire-'

'You assumed I'd say _yes_ ,' Eirn finished, for him.

Perhaps, years ago, it would have been a reasonable assumption. Even in the wake of Ziost (even in the wake of being dragged to Korriban), the Empire had still been- _home_ , or something like it. A place she understood; a place she could navigate, a place she knew how to survive. Survival, though, was not enough - and Odessen may have been difficult, but it was _free_.

'Perhaps it was- wishful thinking,' he replied, quietly. 'Regardless, it was a mistake. One that I deeply regretted. Particularly in the wake of- the attempt on the Empress's life.'

The attempt on Eirn's life, too - when Lorman, Acina's very own pet traitor, had attempted to remove two queens from the board in a single move, and had ended up only managing to shoot himself in the foot. Eirn had needed to get off Kaas more than ever, in the aftermath; had remembered far more vividly than ever why it was she hated life among the Sith, and had barely made it back to the city before she'd been agitating for a ship back to Odessen.

'Malavai,' Eirn replied, quietly - his name, again (and a part of him winced, every time she said it, even as another part seemed desperately to need to hear it), 'The only reason I was- even _on_ Kaas was-'

She paused again, not least because her eyes were trying to cry, again; tears were not supposed to come at all to Sith, never mind naturally, but apparently they were in ready supply today. 'The only reason I was there,' she repeated, 'Was- you. At the very least I was hoping someone might be able to tell me what happened. But- after Lorman - and you weren't...'

'I'm- sorry, Eihn,' he repeated - using her name, again, and his voice cracked when he did so. 'It's not enough to say it, but- I am sorry. Not simply for my absence, but- for everything that it has caused.'

'Why didn't you- _say_ anything, Malavai?' Eirn started \- barely registering what he'd been saying, never mind attempting to respond to it. 'You had- Acina managed to contact us. You could have...'

He flinched, at that; apparently she'd struck a nerve, though that dark part of her couldn't help but snarl that struck nerves were the least of what he was due. 

'Truthfully,' he replied, 'I- was afraid of what might happen. Both of- what the Empire might do, were I to- contact you illicitly. And-' he paused, again - hesitated, another long moment. 'I- it shames me to admit it, but- a part of me was afraid that you- would not wish to- _be_ contacted.'

'So you just,' Eirn started (blinking, again, before wiping away tears that momentarily blinded her; hating them, not least because of the things they told him about her emotional state), 'Let me think...'

'I'm sorry,' he repeated, again. 'I know, it's- I keep saying, but- I am, truly. If I had not-' He paused abruptly, before sighing irritably. 'No words can change my actions, or- undo the damage I have caused. But- Eihn, I am truly sorry. For everything.'

_At least he seems to recognise he hurt you_ , some uncharitable part of Eirn snarled - even if that same part of her did not feel inclined to forgive him for it in the slightest. The part of her which dwelt in the darkness - which had found catharsis in facing the Imperial troops here on Iokath, which growled that her impulsive promises of clemency and protection were a _weakness_ the Empire would only mock and conquer her for.

'So- what about this?' Eirn asked, slowly - still working through everything that he'd told her, and not finding much that gave her reassurance. 'Did Acina- order you _here_ , too?'

Her first, and only, thought since she'd seen him in that briefing room - that Acina had brought him here as some kind of peace offering, something with which to bring her back under Imperial control. It wasn't a very charitable thought, to either Quinn or the Empire, but it was one that kept nagging at her all the same.

'No,' he replied \- hesitating, just for a moment, before plunging on. 'As soon as I realised that Iokath was in Alliance controlled space, I- volunteered for this mission. I- did not have a plan in mind, but- a part of me hoped, all the same, that I might use the opportunity to find some way to contact you. I suspect the Empress realised this and intended to use it to reach out to you herself, but- my presence here was my request, not hers.'

'But you didn't,' Eirn started, 'try to- do anything, you just- all you wanted was to talk about the- fucking _Empire_ -'

That final word came out more as a snarl than anything - an epithet of the worst kind, the one thing she hated the most in that moment. The Empire - the one thing she'd always suspected he loved more than her, the one thing that had managed to hurt her more than he had. He'd claimed to care, once; claimed to be open to the hope of a better, stronger Empire, one built on trust and unity instead of the fragile splinters of other people's bones, but that had been long enough ago that it felt like someone else's lifetime - and was, in a way.

'I know,' he replied, quietly - didn't argue the point, though Eirn wasn't sure this was a mark in his favour. 'Truthfully, I- seeing you there- and with the Republic- I panicked. I did not- wish to- show any- vulnerability. On my own part,' he added, 'Or- on yours. And-' he paused, sighing again. 'I- did not expect that your sympathies would lie with the- _Republic_.'

It was his turn to finish with an epithet, then. He'd always hated the Republic as much as any good Imperial did, both for the standard reasons that all in the Empire were raised to, and for far more personal ones that Eirn found it difficult to fault him for. The disgust in his tone was real enough, and Eirn had no trouble imagining it was aimed at her as much as her allies - for not simply refusing Acina's advances, but leaping into the arms of people who should have been her sworn enemy.

'My sympathies,' Eirn replied, rather sourly, 'Lie no more with the Republic than they do with the Empire. But Acina- you admitted yourself that she was- trying to manipulate me, on Kaas. And- when I saw you there,' she started - looking away from him, finally, 'And- all you cared about was- getting me on the Empire's side, I...'

'You assumed that I was here to- manipulate you,' he replied - his turn, now, to accuse her of- well, of being Sith, raised in the knowledge that everyone around her would be looking to get one up on her at all times, and that the best course of action would always be to do unto others before they did unto her. (Oh, that wasn't the lesson that her mother had tried to teach her, no, but even as a child, Eirn had realised that her mother was unlike other Sith - and absorbed the lessons, at that, which other Sith taught their own children).

'In my place,' she snapped, defensively, 'Would you have assumed any differently?'

He, though, just glared - equally defensively. 'This doesn't change the fact, Eihn,' he replied, 'That you _betrayed_ the Empire.'

'I did,' she replied, quietly - looking down at the table, apparently taking her turn to be the one on trial.

_He hates you for it, Illte. And who could blame him? The Republic would see you both dead, were it not for your stolen Zakuulan ship-_

'And that's- all you have to say for yourself?' he replied - snapped, almost, a sort of incredulous anger welling up from somewhere that Eirn wasn't sure she didn't deserve.

'What do you want me to do, Malavai?' she replied, looking back up to him. 'Justify it? The Empire called me a _traitor_ for trying to save my homeworld. For making the heinous mistake of having served Vitiate, and being stupid enough not to get myself killed before I could be arrested. Or did you forget that? It might have been six years ago for you,' she added - snapped, herself, 'But it was less than _two_ for me.'

'I- no, Eihn,' he replied - deflating, just a little. 'I- remember. But the _Republic_ -'

'Maybe- allying with the Republic _was_ a mistake,' she added - not the first time she'd entertained the idea, not least because of the silent conviction that she'd end up being shipped off to Pub space in a Force-suppressant. 'But Acina- I can't trust her. You admitted yourself she's done nothing but try to manipulate me. And I am so fucking _tired_ of being- _used_ ,' she finished - deflating herself, at that.

Which brought them to where they were; alone, together, with enough pride and anger and regret between them to fuel Korriban for a week. The room finally fell silent, at that, with neither of its occupants apparently willing to break it - or to look at each other, each as focused on the gap between them on the table as the other. Not for the first time, Eirn wished she had something to do with her hands; caf, or a stylus, or- _anything_ to focus the worried, nervous energy that kept jamming up her brain like gum in an engine. 

It was Quinn who broke that silence, though - and Eirn found that she hated him for it as much as she was relieved by it, if only because it took the conversation so much further out of her control.

'So- what happens now? My- lord?'

'I don't know,' Eirn replied, quietly. Why did people keep asking _her_ that, anyway? Why was every decision pushed onto her, who only managed to prove at every juncture that the only decisions she was capable of making were poor ones?

'I guess,' she added, after a moment, 'You'll go back to the Empire. And I'll...' 

She wouldn't; _couldn't_ , even if she wasn't a traitor. Even if walking into an Imperial ship wouldn't be a far more immediate death sentence than, of all the ironies, walking into a Republic one. 

'You could- come with me,' Quinn finished - added, offered, the hopefulness in his tone impossible to miss. 'Your actions- saved the Empress's life. That will- count for something, I am certain. And- I- this may- I know that-' he started - kept restarting, kept hesitating. 'I've- missed you, Eihn. I- love you,' he added (and his voice cracked, and her heart ached, and the space between them was wide enough to contain Iokath and all its unknown secrets). 'I appreciate that my- conduct- may not- seem to reflect it, but I have never stopped loving you. My biggest regret is that my actions - my inaction \- have caused you such pain. I-'

'I can't,' Eirn interrupted - before pausing, as he flinched, the pang of fear and- _heartbreak_ that bubbled out from him almost strong enough to _taste_.

'When I- went back to Kaas,' she added, quietly, 'It was like- walking into a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from. Like...' the worst of the visions she'd had on Oricon, and made all the worse for the fact that it wasn't a vision, but the reality of what she'd been ripped away from. The whispered plotting of ministers and moffs, the betrayal and murder that Sith dressed up as politics.

'I can't go back to that. I'm sorry,' she added - even if it hadn't been for all of this.

'So- is that,' he started - half mumbling, the words stumbling into each other as he tried to say them, 'Does that mean-?'

That they were over? That this was it?

'You could,' Eirn started - not wanting to acknowledge that question, not least because it would mean having to answer it, 'Come to Odessen. To the Alliance. With me.'

Leave the Empire. _Betray_ the Empire - for her, a runt, a _nobody_. For his wife.

'I know it's- asking a lot,' she added - not entirely able to make _herself_ look at him, now that she was issuing her ultimatum. 'I've- missed you, Malavai. I missed _us_. But I can't- go back to Kaas. Not even for you. I'm sorry,' she added - making it her turn to repeat those words until she was sick of them.

He didn't say anything in response to that, and Eirn could feel herself latching on to the belief that he was trying to find the words to tell her no; to tell her the one thing she knew he would respond with, that his love for the Empire that loathed them both would always outstrip his love for her, and that she was foolish for ever having hoped otherwise. 

'Just- think about it,' she added, quietly. 'Please. If you don't want to then- you'll- be returned to the Empire, along with the rest of the Imperials we pulled out of Iokath. I won't- hold you here against your will. If- you prefer to leave- you can.'

Words she hated, even as she dragged them out - words she didn't want to _have_ to say, words she knew that he would only hold against her, but- what choice did she have? 

'If- I were to leave,' he began, quietly - his own voice remarkably even, and Eirn couldn't help but take it as a poor omen, 'That would- It would be- final,' he finished, apparently wanting to put this into words at least as much as she did, an idea that gave her very little comfort.

Eirn tried to answer, and only managed an undignified half-sob, half quashed by her pride and half bubbling unpleasantly out of her as a barely contained sniffle that put lie to any hope she might get out of this with the remains of her dignity intact. It didn't help that there were fresh tears rolling down her cheeks; collecting in the places that her tendrils curved against her skin, before eventually dripping off them, out of her immediate awareness but still _there_ in far too real a manner.

'I'm- sorry,' she repeated - deflating again, as she said it. The words never felt enough - never _were_ enough, though not for lack of trying.

'I should- go,' she started - needing to flee this place more than ever, even as a part of her wanted nothing more to grab her once-husband and sob into his shoulder until the world made sense again - or, at the very least, made a little less no-sense. That wasn't an option, though, and the longer she stayed the more she needed to be anywhere that wasn't there.

'Thank you, Malavai. For-' Being honest. Talking to me. '-Everything.' Which even as she said it sounded far more final than she wanted it to, and the fear and heartbreak that echoed through his expression at it only made her regret her choice of words all the more. 'I'm- sorry,' she added - blurting the words out, as though they wouldn't just make it worse. 'If you need anything-' she continued - officially babbling, now, and pausing abruptly when she realised that not only did she not want to continue that sentence, but she wasn't even sure why she'd started it.

'I- will let you know,' he finished, for her - awkwardly, searching her expression for something that he wasn't finding and not reassured by any of this in the slightest. 'Thank you, Eihn. My- lord.'

_My love._ The memory of being called that just hurt, though, all the more - and Eirn just nodded, once, before she could burst any further into tears - and, unable to make herself exit this nightmare any more politely, took that as her cue to finally abruptly take her leave.


	13. Chapter 13

_He hates you, Illte._

It was a thought that Eirn found impossible to dislodge, in the aftermath of that - whether it was holding herself upright in the Gravestone's elevator, leaning against the wall of her fresher's shower, or curled up alone in bed - lying awake, again, trying to make herself rest before her impending confrontation with the Republic, and failing quite entirely.

She'd considered all her options, of course; sat the edge of her bed for what had felt like hours, turning over her box of sleeping pills as though the repetition of the action would somehow change the fact that she was merely wasting time, before giving up on drugging herself as the sort of thing which would only result in oversleeping. Meditation hadn't worked, either; had just made her all the more aware of Malavai, two decks down; a numb knot of fear and grief and longing that mirrored hers, an unpleasant reflection of everything she simultaneously was and feared and needed. 

_I love you._

But she hadn't told him, had she? He'd used those words, words that had taken him so long to say in the first place, and she- hadn't, she'd just- told him she wasn't going home, that she missed him but not enough to face Kaas (its rain - its betrayal and backstabbing, its grey skies and slick pavements and slim knives), not enough to face the Sith, not enough to-

(to leave Odessen; to leave her freedom, leave her family, leave a place where she could make a difference for one that would execute her for trying)

_But I do- I do, Malavai, I do, I do-_

-

Which was why, several hours later, most of what was keeping her upright was caf and obstinance; which was why she wore a thin layer of carefully blended cosmetics in an attempt to disguise the telltale signs of exhaustion, and hoped that the Republic flagship didn't come with anything more trying than Malcom's idea of diplomacy.

Eirn wasn't wearing her armour, even if her instincts complained bitterly about this all the way - dressed down for the occasion, wearing a grey thigh-length robe with matching leggings in the Zakuulan style, sharply hemmed and tied with a purple sash that almost matched her lightsaber's beam. Her saber was worn openly, of course, displayed at her hip for anyone to see - a Sith habit that she found impossible to drop, and which if it drew Republic attention away from her exhaustion she was more than happy to indulge. 

With Koth overseeing rescue efforts and Lana attempting to negotiate the return of the rescued Imperial personnel, her only company for the trip was Theron, and he seemed more than a little reluctant. His father, Eirn could only assume, was the cause of that - that, and any lingering resentment the Republic might have nursed over his abandoning of it. That, at least, was a concern Eirn understood; the Empire did not treat its traitors kindly, and she had little reason to believe that the Republic was much different. It was why, for all the differences she had with him, she didn't resent Theron's presence - he was risking a lot (confronting a lot), at least partially for her- safety? comfort? - even if his own unsettled avoidant anticipation did nothing to abate hers.

There was a standard Republic greeting party there to welcome them - armed and armoured, and Eirn's hand had twitched to her lightsaber before she could stop it - before she was even aware of it, even as the spike of tension in the air was something that the rest of her noticed immediately. The guard twitched immediately in turn, of course - the tension in the air spiking and sparking, and barely muted when the highest ranking member of the greeting party spoke up.

'Commander Illte. Welcome to the Aegis.' If Dorne had any idea as to Eirn's internal state, she gave no impression of it; was nothing but professional, an act that Eirn had no desire to dispel. 

Dorne was wearing what Eirn could only assume was her service uniform - beige and beige, sharply pressed, with her boots polished to as much of a mirror shine as her aura, and her shirt decorated with pips and bars that meant nothing to Eirn but which she could only assume told a story of Dorne's career, to those who knew how to read it. 

'Captain Dorne,' Eirn started - making her expression as neutral as she could. Other perhaps than Jaesa's shuttle, so many years ago now, she'd never been on any Republic ship until now - never mind a flagship. A part of Eirn had always assumed that if she did, it would because some Jedi or other had finally gotten the better of her. The fear she'd always had of being dragged to Coruscant to answer for her- well, her crimes, had not abated any, and indeed was currently doing an impressive job of attempting to strangle her. (She was certain, too, that any Force-sensitive that looked at her would be able to _tell_ \- that she, the once-Wrath, was _petrified_ , a conviction that did absolutely nothing to bolster her confidence)

'I've been informed that Empress Acina is well enough to receive you,' Dorne continued - conversationally, almost, and Eirn couldn't help but admire and envy Dorne's collectedness in equal parts. 'Agent Shan,' she added, glancing to Theron, 'Agent Balkar is expecting you.'

'I'll... see myself across,' Theron replied - apparently not eager to accompany any party that was headed in the direction of his father. 'Try to stay out of trouble, will you?'

That last part was addressed to Eirn, naturally - who just responded with a dramatic sigh. '

'If you'd follow me please, Commander,' Dorne added, gesturing towards what seemed to be the exit - and, after half a moment's nervous hesitation, Eirn did.

-

Malcom's flagship had a size to rival that of any Imperial flagship, and Eirn - who'd always found huge ships to be unpleasantly claustrophobic - hadn't been reassured by it in the slightest. Being whisked around the ship in a closed tramcar didn't help, even if her only company was Dorne - even if Dorne was doing everything she could to project an aura of calm, understated confidence that Eirn wished she could believe in, never mind mimic.

'I- wasn't expecting to see you, though,' Eirn started, slightly awkwardly. 'I mean- I would have thought you'd be with Commander Malcom.'

'The Commander thought it might help to see a familiar face,' Dorne replied - smiling, just a little, projecting a sort of disarming friendliness that part of Eirn appreciated and part of her was just put on her guard by.

'Thanks,' Eirn replied, still awkwardly - not that there was anything about this conversation that wasn't slightly awkward. She wished, not for the first time, that Lana or Koth could have accompanied her - and that Theron wasn't so averse to his father that he'd abandon her in favour of some former colleague. It was a selfish wish, but it nagged at her all the same - chewed at her awareness like an eager puppy, pulling at any threads that it could find.

'I- appreciate it, Captain. Really,' she added - and she did, mostly. Dorne was- well, she barely knew the woman, but that put her kilometres ahead of most of the other Republic personnel here, and- perhaps thankfully, none of the Jedi that had accompanied Malcom seemed willing to admit having come across her. 

'I know this can't have been easy for you,' Eirn started - wondering, even as she said it, if it was a good idea - or if Dorne wasn't just going to take offence. 'Facing the Empire,' she added - an attempt to clarify herself, not that it felt any less like she was digging herself into a hole.

_Working with me_ , she added, silently; a Sith, and not just any Sith, but the Sith who had once been called the Empire's Wrath. Not the longest lived of her involuntary titles, but the most recent of the Empire's chains, and one which Eirn didn't doubt for a moment that Dorne was well aware of.

Dorne was studying her, though - scrutinising her, which was never a pleasant turn of events, even on the best of days. It was impossible to tell what standard she was being measured up against, though; those of the Empire, of the Republic - of both, of neither - 

'I have to admit,' Dorne started, after a moment, 'I had not expected to have to take orders from a Sith again. But these have been... unusual circumstances.'

'The Force has a shitty sense of humour,' Eirn replied, smiling wryly; there were things about this situation she'd never have expected, either, though she doubted it was quite as unsettling as it must have been for Dorne. Eirn knew full well how the Empire viewed traitors, after all - she'd dealt with her share herself, both those who'd turned their backs on the Empire in general and Baras specifically. To say nothing, of course, of when _she'd_ been dragged to Korriban in chains.

It apparently wasn't quite the response Dorne was expecting, though; she cleared her throat, slightly awkwardly, and Eirn wondered for a long moment if she shouldn't have said something a little more in line with- what? Sith attitudes? _Jedi_ ones?

'Yes,' Dorne replied, all awkward, 'Well. I suppose- what I wanted to say is that- working with you, and with the Alliance, has been an honour. It's my sincere hope that we can continue to work together.'

Which made Eirn smile, just a little; made her wonder, reflexively, how much of this was honesty and how much was sycophancy. It was an unkind, uncharitable reflex, and one she tried to push down, but it gnawed at her anyway; the idea that Dorne was attempting diplomacy on behalf of her masters, and the conviction that Eirn would be foolish to fall for it.

'Thanks,' Eirn replied, once she'd wrangled that sentence all the way through, 'I think.' It was difficult not to be bemused, in turn, but then- everything about this was on its head from how things should-have-been. Working alongside a turncoat, following the orders-phrased-as-suggestions of a Republic commander-

'Can- _may_ I- ask you a personal question, Captain?' Eirn added - blurted, almost, afraid that she was about to ruin the moment with her selfishness - needing, desperately, to ask Dorne this question but equally certain that doing so would only ruin things irreparably. 

Dorne studied her for a long moment - assessing her, warily, as though she expected Eirn to lapse at any moment into behaviour more typically associated with Sith. 

'You may,' she replied, eventually - still wary, if polite, her expression not wavering for a moment.

'Do you-' Eirn managed - pausing, as her nervousness choked her. Was this even _a remotely_ appropriate question to ask? She barely _knew_ the woman, who would have been well within her rights to tell Eirn to butt out of her business - an unlikely response from a born Imperial, true, but Dorne had the might of the Republic on her side, here - '-ever- regret it?'

For another moment, Eirn was afraid that Dorne might not get it; that she might get it, and express offence, either through withdrawal of her earlier diplomacy, or through more traditionally Imperial methods.

'No,' Dorne replied, though - without any hesitation, something that Eirn immediately envied. 'The Republic is my home, and I am proud to serve.'

She meant it, too - her aura just as mirror-smooth as it always was, but the defiant pride in her voice and the slight smile in her expression gave her away. A part of Eirn immediately envied and admired that certainty, too - to be able to make such a statement with such confidence, such _ease_ , and to someone who- well, who should by all rights have been nothing but the worst kind of threat. (The source of her defiance, perhaps; the acute knowledge that she was trapped in close quarters with an armed Sith, and Eirn wanted more than ever to retract everything about the conversation so far)

Eirn, though, just smiled - faintly, but genuinely. 'Good,' she replied - still awkwardly, still quite convinced that she'd just ruined something. 'The Republic is lucky to have you, Captain.' And then: 'Sorry.'

Not that this made the tramcar any more bearable a place to be - or did anything to stop the bolt of worried paranoia that went through Eirn when it abruptly slowed, even if Dorne didn't look to have done anything that might have connected its movement with Eirn's conversational missteps.

'The medical wing,' Dorne simply started, by way of explanation - dropping the prior conversation entirely, for which Eirn was indescribably grateful. 'If you'd follow me, please, Commander?'

-

There were stares, of course, as Dorne escorted her through the wing - patients in corridors, nurses glancing up over datapads. It was hard not to read them as hostile, too; hard not to feel _judged_ , hard not to feel like this was the last place in the galaxy that she belonged. It wasn't an inaccurate assessment; Sith did not, by and large, belong on Republic vessels, and Eirn rather intended to be out from here as soon as she was able.

(It was her own fault, she silently reflected, that she was here; her need to make sure Acina was still alive, to reassure the part of her that couldn't help but snarl that the Republic would take any opportunity they got to haul the both of them back to Coruscant before the Empire knew what was happening)

'Your lightsaber, please?' Dorne had paused outside of a sideward that was guarded, at its door, by armed and armoured guards - armed and armoured _Jedi_ , who shot Eirn impenetrable glares when she hesitated to hand over her saber.

'It's a standard security procedure, Commander,' Dorne added, when Eirn didn't respond - not that this reassured, Eirn much. (Not that she imagined it would reassure Acina, much \- assuming that the Sith Empress even lay on the other side of this closed door)

_You have the Force_ , she reminded herself. _Your nails, your teeth._

Not for the first time, Eirn resented the perfection of Dorne's mental shell - all she saw in the other woman was a reflection of herself, trying to gauge the soldier's reaction and coming up entirely blank. Certainly Dorne was professional enough that she wasn't making a scene, or visibly savouring the moment, but that didn't make it any easier to hand over her lightsaber. She did, though - removing the hilt from its holster, and offering it to Dorne, who politely thanked her - before Eirn turned her attention to the waiting door.

_Well. Here goes nothing._

-

All that the ward contained, though, was Acina - and an attending nurse, who murmured a quiet apology when Eirn entered, before disappearing out through the door - leaving Eirn alone, for now, with the Sith Empress. Not that Eirn believed for a moment that they weren't still being watched; the Republic would have been foolish not to have Acina's wardroom monitored, but it was an illusion that Eirn imagined Acina would be grateful for. As for the Empress herself, she was lying in the bed - out of kolto, evidently, but not yet anywhere near healed. With her hair down and her cosmetics removed - without her robes or armour but a Republic medical nightgown and a Force-nullifying headband, Acina looked- _was_ \- far more vulnerable than Eirn had ever known her. (She wasn't cuffed, at the very least - at least, not visibly, though Eirn knew that didn't mean there weren't restraints under that hospital blanket. Still, it at least allowed Acina the illusion of merely lying in bed, even if Eirn doubted that the Empress drew any kind of comfort from that)

When she looked up, though - opening her eyes, examining the room and its contents with what usually might have been disdain - it was with the same imperious defiance that Acina always had, a mask she'd worn for so long it had melded with her natural expression until the two were inseparable.

'Come to gloat, Meliora?' Acina also sounded more than a little woozy, and Eirn wasn't certain that the headband was the only reason for it. Given the state she'd last seen the Empress in, Eirn was honestly surprised that she was out of a kolto tank, never mind conscious enough to hold any sort of conversation.

'No, Empress,' Eirn replied - unable to squash all of the insulted caution from her tone, but she tried. 'I just- wanted to see how you were.'

'Well,' Acina replied, examining her as imperiously as her circumstances allowed, 'You've seen. Though I'd be grateful if you spared me your usual heresy.'

Eirn wasn't about to be shooed away that easily, though - even if she had as much desire to dispense heresy as Acina apparently did to hear it. There were things she wanted to say, though - _needed_ to, even if the Empress likely wouldn't want to hear those, either.

'None of this was necessary, Acina,' Eirn sighed - taking a seat beside Acina's bed. If nothing else, it was a demonstration of the fact she was not about to be turfed out on anybody's schedule but her own. 'Nobody wants another war. Nobody can _afford_ one.'

'As usual, Meliora,' Acina sighed - closing her eyes again, 'You have no idea what you are talking about. The Republic is hardly the only threat that the Sith face.'

That, at least, was something they agreed on. 'The biggest threat the Sith face,' Eirn replied, unable to not take the bait, 'Is the _Sith_.'

Acina snorted to that, but didn't argue against it; winced, after a moment, but was otherwise content to pretend to ignore the younger Sith. 

'For what it's worth,' Eirn added, after a long moment, 'I always admired you, too. You had the intelligence to know when to show restraint. You had a dedication to something other than yourself. You were...' she paused, trailing off as she considered her words. 'The sanity that the Council sorely needed. That the _Sith_ needed.'

'And look where it got me,' Acina sighed. She cut that thought short - likely, given the circumstances, because of those who were no doubt listening, but the words remained between them, unsaid. Acina had been betrayed by her most trusted apprentices, once, and it was only through Eirn's intervention that she'd retained her life - never mind her position on the Dark Council.

'It got you onto the Council,' Eirn replied, 'One of the most powerful, most trusted and most respected positions in the Empire. It got you the kind of power most Sith can only dream of. Not... trinkets or secrets or... everything else Sith get distracted by. People listened to you. People who _mattered_. It got you,' she added, 'Onto the throne.'

And from there, she'd fallen; stumbled before Zakuul, and been caught by the Republic. There was little more humiliating to a Sith, Eirn knew, than capture by the enemy - than to not only have failed and fallen in battle, but to have been considered so unworthy as to be denied a warrior's death. Of course this was an attitude, equally, that had lead to far more Sith death than necessary; led to a refusal to submit that condemned more than it saved, and all for the sake of an ego that wouldn't be around to be embarrassed. Sith pride, at its most pointlessly self-destructive.

'How do you do it, Meliora?' Acina was looking at her, again, with that imperious disdain, but there was more to it - the same bemused curiosity that she'd once worn in her offices on Kaas; that half-forgotten corner of the grand Sith Citadel, home to an eccentric Councillor and her self-indulgent projects.

_How do you walk away from such power, Wrath?_

'The same way I do everything, Acina,' she replied. 'One foot in front of the other. One day at a time.'

Which sounded easy, when she said it, then. It was all the answer that she had, though; always placing one foot forward, always taking one more breath. It didn't always end the way she wanted to, but it was better than languishing in the places that she'd be without it - alone in some unknown corner, at the bottom of some empty bottle.

It made Acina snort, again - made her wince, again, as some hidden injury or another continued making its presence known. 'I asked you to _spare_ me your drivel, Meliora.'

Eirn, though, just smiled - not least because that was far from the worst insult that Acina had flung her way. She stood, though - taking that as her cue to go. She'd said all she wanted to; besides which, the Empress needed more important things than her judgement.

'Rest, and heal well, Empress,' Eirn just said, as she stood. ' _E' qyâsik ben'yae grot_.'

' _Zhol et'yae voresti_ ,' Acina retorted - unable, naturally, to let Eirn get away with the last word. ' _Nuya tso, Meli'Ari_.'

_And may your path be clearly marked - and separate from mine._

-

Having her lightsaber back in hand - back its holster, its familiar weight against her - didn't do nearly as much to reassure Eirn's paranoia as she'd hoped it might. A part of her nagged at the idea that someone might have modified or sabotaged it when she wasn't looking; that when she lit it next, it would fail to light, or worse, and it was an impossible idea to truly push away. She did her best, though - telling her paranoia that she'd inspect her saber millimetre by millimetre, once she was safely away from prying Republic eyes, and refusing to humour it any more than that.

If nothing else, Malcom didn't keep her waiting - something Eirn was grateful for all by itself, if only because her need to get _off this ship_ increased every time she planted her foot in her mouth - never mind one foot in front of the other. 

'I'm glad to see you got out of Iokath in one piece, Commander,' Malcom mused, once Eirn had taken her seat at his table. 

'Thanks to Captain Dorne's assistance,' Eirn replied, nodding. 'Iokath is back under the Alliance's control,' she added -a fact, a threat, but one that didn't seem to faze Malcom, 'One of my people is coordinating our search for survivors. I've also asked our medical officers to make sure any Republic soldiers on Alliance vessels are returned to you as soon as they're fit to be moved.'

'And Empress Acina?' Malcom added - a pointed question. 'I hope everything was in order?'

'She seemed well, given the circumstances,' Eirn replied, cautiously. If she was honest, she'd been half-expecting for there to be some endless runaround - for Acina to be unavailable, to be half way to Coruscant, to be sedated in a kolto tank. 'May I ask,' she added, equally cautiously, 'What the Republic is planning to do with her?'

Eirn hoped, if nothing else, Malcom realised how fruitless taking a Sith hostage was; if Kaas got wind of Acina's defeat and capture, then her credibility would be in further tatters even without factoring in the Empire's failure to secure Iokath. Acina's underlings would sooner squabble amongst one another for her empty throne than mount a rescue effort for their Empress, and not for the first time, Eirn felt a pang of loneliness and despair at the idea of being left among one's enemies to rot.

'It's my understanding, Commander,' Malcom replied - not quite answering her question, and mostly seeming to avoid it, 'That you've been promising the Imperial troops that they can go home after all of this.'

'I promised I would do everything within my power to make that happen,' Eirn replied, 'And it's a promise I intend to keep.'

Malcom was mostly projecting amusement in response to her promise - and her confirmation of it, though Eirn wasn't sure what to make of that. Sith were not renowned for being protective of anyone but themselves, and Eirn knew that the Republic likely had little cause to believe her any different. 

'The Alliance,' Eirn added,' Is already negotiating with the Empire to return their people.' It was why Lana wasn't there with her; was one reason, at any rate.

'I see,' Malcom replied - back to studying her cautiously. 'You're aware, Commander,' he added, 'That there is no peace treaty between the Republic and the Empire?'

'I'm aware,' Eirn replied, nodding - Arcann had cared little about the wider galaxy and its conflicts, and his successors seemed little different. Zakuul's withdrawing back into itself had just meant that there was more room for the rest of the galaxy to fight amongst themselves, again. 'But the Alliance has no desire for war. Under the circumstances,' she added - taking a long, deep, breath, as she started her speech. 'I'd- like to informally request the Republic allow Imperial troops in your care to return to the Empire. In return, the Alliance-'

Eirn paused abruptly, as something shifted - not even certain, for a moment, what it was that had changed before realising that the Force itself had- twinged? No, that wasn't quite the word - something had _snapped_ , like the taut wire of a vioflute pushed beyond breaking point in the middle of a performance. It was impossible to tell more than that, though - not without reaching out, not without-

'Commander?' Malcom prompted - not any less cautious for her hesitation, and with a creeping note of cautious suspicion that promised nothing good.

'We're prepared to open formal negotiations with the Republic,' Eirn replied, slowly - not least because she didn't want to fluff these words, important as they were. 'Though Iokath is and will remain under the Alliance's control, we're willing to discuss terms for trade and access to certain technologies found here. Iokath's civilisation was highly advanced, and it is our belief that some of this technology will be beneficial in rebuilding the galaxy.'

It had been agreed by the Alliance Council - or at least, those of them who'd been available for the emergency holoconference. Eirn knew that there was going to be resistance to any kind of arrangement that implied any greater relationship with the Republic than exploiting Iokath; it wasn't an idea she was thrilled about herself, if she was truthful. Still, that was why more formal negotiations were things that people better suited to this sort of game than she could play at - assuming Malcom and his superiors agreed, of course.

'Certain technologies?' Malcom repeated - sounding as sceptical as Eirn felt, though that was a feeling she tried to squelch.

'Not for its weaponry,' Eirn replied, before he could add anything more to that thought. 'Iokath's weapon systems have one purpose alone, Commander,' she added, 'and this galaxy has too many dead worlds in it.'

Which made Malcom snort, or something like it, and Eirn couldn't help but bristle defensively. A Sith saying those words- well, she'd have been ejected from any Imperial negotiation, and probably onto someone's lightsaber, but that was why she wasn't having this conversation with Acina. It was hard not to be irritated that she wasn't being taken seriously, though - impossible not to feel that she was being judged and found wanting, and by someone who barely thought of her as a worthy enemy, never mind an ally.

'I can't answer on behalf of the Senate,' Malcom replied - started to reply, 'But I'll be sure to pass your offer along. In the mean time-'

He was interrupted, though, by the meeting room's door swishing open - to reveal a lower-ranking officer than Dorne, some young Twi'lek man - still dressed in a Republic service uniform, all beige cloth and softer lines than the Imperial equivalent - surrounded by an air that promised nothing good, and Eirn felt that broken vioflute string start to wrap itself around her throat.

'I'm sorry to interrupt, Commander,' the messenger started, 'But this is urgent-'

-

Malcom tried to insist that Eirn absent herself, which naturally, had the opposite effect - especially once Theron finally reappeared, whatever colleague he'd been here speaking with in tow, each of them as jumpy as the other, once the news was broken. 

The medical wing was emptier than it had been, but tenser for it - a sort of high-pitched, cautious tension dragging its claws down Eirn's spine as though, as warnings went, it wouldn't have been much more useful before there'd been ore Sith blood on someone else's hands. ( _On your hands_ , a part of her insisted - _you allowed this, you enabled this, if you hadn't insisted on your childish betrayal-_ )

The Jedi were gone, but that did nothing to reassure Eirn - if anything, it just made her all the more angrily suspicious, especially once she'd seen for herself the scene that they'd failed to guard against. There was nothing peaceful about it; the Force was reeling, that sensation of an _ending_ stronger than ever (like a door slammed shut in a storm, abrupt and loud) but Acina was-

- _lying_ there, her eyes wide open, the Force-nullifying headband skewed from where it had been knocked in some struggle, her blanket and loose medical gown barely more disturbed than they'd been when Eirn had been here before (when this place had not stunk of failure and recrimination; of when there'd been a chance, however small, that this could all end peacefully). There was no mistaking the lightsaber burn in her chest, though, or the stink of cauterised flesh - that stood out more, somehow, for the ambient scent of disinfectant that medical wards always smelled of.

_Of all the ways for a Sith to die_ , Eirn couldn't not reflect, _of all the ways for a_ Sith'Ari _to die-_

-not even able to defend herself, cut off from the Force and chained to an enemy's hospital bed, unable to do anything except lie and wait for death to come-

(and Eirn could feel it herself, for a moment; the despair, the fear and the humiliation, the futile, desperate anger, and her fists clenched and her nostrils flared and then the moment passed and all she was left with was the knowledge, now, that all she'd struggled for here would be for naught; that the galaxy would burn, for this, no matter how she tried to stop it, and it was _all her fault_ -)

'Commander,' Theron was starting to say, 'We should get back to the Gravestone...'

Eirn didn't respond, though - barely acknowledged him, even as her fingers flexed and lightning threatened to arc between them - restless, paranoid terror, regret and frustration and fear and lightheaded disbelief that the galaxy was coming undone around her and ( _it's your fault, Illte, all your-_ )

_'Vengaer ts'ona_ ,' she just murmured, half to herself, ' _Acina Sith'Ari_.' Which was probably going to cause more problems with the Republic than it would solve, but in that moment, Eirn didn't care; the Alliance had far bigger problems, as of now, than a few bruised egos.

_You shall be avenged._


	14. Chapter 14

'There is no easy way to say this. As many of you know, Empress Acina was receiving medical care on the Republic flagship. I spoke with her myself to confirm her health and well treatment. However, while I was aboard the Republic flagship negotiating matters with Commander Malcom, an unknown assailant managed to infiltrate the Empress's treatment quarters and assassinate her. The Republic is officially denying responsibility for her death, and has agreed to cooperate with Alliance officials in an investigation.

'Empress Acina and I did not see eye to eye on many things, but as Sith, we were once allied against the Dread Masters, and that is not a bond I will forsake lightly. Whoever is responsible for her death, and for the deaths of all those here at Iokath, will answer for their crimes to all of us - to the Republic, to the Alliance, and to the Empire.'

-

As speeches went, it had to be the worst one she'd given lately - not least because of the events that had prompted it. Eirn wondered if she didn't bring it upon herself, sometimes; making herself as public as she did, even if it seemed like she was the only one stupid enough to care. _Especially,_ somehow, as it seemed she was frequently the only one stupid enough to care. 

Her hands were shaking; hadn't stopped since they'd returned from the _Aegis_ , despite her best attempts. She'd tried to eat, and failed, managing a few unenthusiastic mouthfuls of pasta in the galley before making an excuse and retreating to her quarters, where she'd failed just as much to- stand, to sit, to shower, to focus on anything that wasn't Acina's dead body and the thought of the galaxy at war. There hadn't been a peace between the Empire and the Republic since the one that she'd helped Baras break; Zakuul had forced both to bow, yes, but had never cared about the fighting that had continued among its surrendered enemies. In the months since Zakuul's own fall, little had changed - the constant border conflicts and cold hostilities had proceeded as they always had, and Eirn knew it was just a matter of time before they erupted into something worse.

(Which was why, some hours later, she still hadn't slept; couldn't sleep, propped up this time by fear and guilt as much as anything else, and none the better for it whatsoever)

-

At least in the sanctity of the Gravestone, Eirn could nurse as much caf as she pleased to - even if the ship's synthesiser was no competitor to freshly ground beans. Still, it was more an accessory to focus her worried thoughts - and draw the attention of others away from her exhaustion, even if the rest of the Alliance's senior staff seemed too polite to draw attention to it.

'You really think that whoever killed Acina- is behind Lana's intel, too?' Theron seemed cautiously sceptical, even as his gaze hopped between the two Sith - trying, Eirn could only assume, to get some kind of read on them.

'I don't know,' Eirn sighed - though it was an idea that had nagged at her ever since she'd seen Acina lying in what had become her deathbed, and realised that this meant war was now more inevitable than ever. 'Maybe- someone in the Republic just saw an opportunity, and took it. But-'

Eirn sighed again - pausing as she marshalled her thoughts, and scrambled for the words to express them. 'If Acina hadn't been- maybe we could have- this could have- ended peacefully. The Empire wouldn't have an excuse for vengeance, and the Alliance and the Republic wouldn't be on eggshells around each other. But now- things are worse than when we got here.'

'It's not just the Empire we should be concerned about,' Lana replied, slowly. 'Whoever was behind the intel that brought us here _wanted_ us to fight each other. With the Empress's death, this all but guarantees war.'

'The same kind of war that Vitiate wanted,' Eirn added, after a moment - a possibility that she hadn't considered before, but which she knew now was going to nag at her until she got some answers - and ones that she could _believe_.

'Vitiate's- gone, isn't he?' Theron replied - studying Eirn warily, which didn't do anything to reassure her. 'I thought you- dealt with that,' he added, a note of doubt creeping into his tone.

'He's gone,' Lana said - far more firmly than Eirn rather abruptly felt. 'We've got no reason to believe he had any influence on any of- this,' she added - leaving her opinion on Eirn's paranoia unspoken, but still audible.

'Guess we should probably count ourselves lucky Zakuul isn't involved,' Koth volunteered, albeit a little dubiously. 'I mean, at least _someone_ isn't gunning for us, right?'

_Unless this was a ploy by Zakuul to weaken us all at once_ , Eirn's paranoia mused, unhelpfully. _They still have the Fleet, even if it is weakened now, and have been suffering since you put a stop to their robbery-_

'I've got some good news,' Lana continued - not acknowledging that, but not contradicting him, either. 'The Republic has agreed to release the Imperial troops they're holding, along with the Empress's body, on the condition that the Empire withdraws from Iokath without further conflict. The Empire has not given an official response yet, but under the circumstances...'

_They'd be idiots_ , Eirn finished, silently, _to refuse_. Not that Imperial policy was made by being rational about odds of survival; if it was, then they'd never have reclaimed Korriban.

It just meant that Eirn was thinking about Malavai again, though - made her all the more acutely aware of that faint knot of nervousness, two decks down. Not that she'd stopped being aware of him, all the time she'd known he was there; not that this stopped her wondering if she was imagining it, a symptom of guilt and selfishness as much as loneliness.

'What about the Imps we're holding? You get an agreement from the Empire for them, yet?' Theron was the one who asked Lana that, somehow; Eirn was too busy mulling on her failings, and Koth seemed distracted by something on his datapad.

'Tentatively,' Lana replied, nodding. 'Once the agreement with the Republic is finalised, their people will be returned. 

'Last of our crews just reported in,' Koth volunteered. 'There were a few stragglers in the bases, but none of the wreckage was occupied. Seems like droids were already helping themselves to it for scrap,' he added, a little dubiously.

'Have your people get any Republic soldiers back to the Aegis,' Lana started, 'And-'

'Already on it,' Koth interrupted, making a briefly dismissive gesture. 'Got a few Imperials, too. I'm sending you the names now.' 

'If that's everything,' Theron started, 'I should get back to the Aegis myself. Not that I don't trust our Republic friends, but...'

The investigation into Acina's death was going nowhere fast, and Eirn felt herself wince at that thought - that all her incompetence had resulted in was more messes for other people to have to clean up, that all she'd usefully contributed to this was- nothing, actually, and they'd all have been far better served by her absence. It was that thought she was stuck on as Theron and Koth made their farewells and left, both of them competent enough to be trusted with important tasks and neither, apparently, inclined to stick around.

'Lord Illte,' Lana added, as Eirn started to move - addressing her, not that Eirn really wanted to acknowledge it. 

'Lana,' Eirn replied \- looking tiredly at the other Sith, and hoping this would be over quickly - if only so that she could find a quiet corner to be alone with her failures. 

Lana, of course, was offering her nothing of the sort - not that Eirn had believed for a moment that she might get out of this easily. 

'Major Quinn was asking for you,' Lana started - holding Eirn's gaze the entire time, her expression not faltering for a moment. 'I believe he wished to talk in private.'

Which Eirn wasn't certain how she was supposed to take - and Lana's expression and aura, as always, provided no clues. The older Sith was as business-like as ever, but Eirn knew better than to assume that Lana had no feelings on the matter - no insight, no suspicions, no agendas. 

_What did he say. What does he want. Is he- Is he-_

'Thank you,' Eirn just managed - the words trying to catch on her throat on their way out. It was impossible to squash all of the emotions that bubbled up just at his name - not least because she was Sith, raised to express herself (at least, express certain parts of herself), not to push emotions down but to turn them in weapons that she was no longer sure she even wanted to wield.

'I'll- speak to him,' she added, faintly - distantly, already simultaneously reaching out and retreating, in the Force, and quite certain that whatever it was that awaited her, it was nothing pleasant.

-

There were a thousand excuses she could have made - that tried to make themselves, as she forced herself to make the journey to where Malavai was being held. The simple fact was, though, that what she was afraid of was almost entirely herself - the knowledge that she couldn't give Malavai the one thing he'd ask for, and was half-convinced that the thing she wanted to ask of him the most would be one thing he could never offer.

She knocked before she entered, again - felt ridiculous for doing so, again, even if that feeling got swallowed up immediately by the nervous terror that kept threatening to consume her. When she entered, it was to see that he looked much the same as he had the last time they'd spoken - turned out as immaculately as he could be, under the circumstances, at least as afraid as she was and barely a reassurance for it.

'Eihn,' he just managed, in greeting - an improvement on their last meeting, though not by much, especially as the name seemed to try to strangle him on its way out.

'Lana- said you wanted to talk,' Eirn just replied - half quietly, half numbly, half _barely_ \- half not even sure that these were the words she should have been looking for, and entirely certain that whatever happened next, she would regret it.

He just nodded, though - briefly, nervously, tension coiling up in him in a way that promised nothing pleasant.

'Lord Beniko was kind enough to inform me of Empress Acina's passing,' he started, his nervousness not reassuring her in the slightest. 'And- your- statement- I saw the broadcast, but- I wanted-'

He kept pausing - hesitating, grappling for words that wouldn't come, an imperfect reflection of her own attempts to rehearse speeches that never sounded half as convincing, when she made them, as when she wrote them in her head. A projection, perhaps - but Malavai had always been an imperfect mirror, his own inability to measure up to his impossible standards for himself reminding Eirn of herself in a way that had at least meant she was not alone.

When he looked to her, though - when he paused, before drawing himself up with a sort of confidence that Eirn didn't feel - he wasn't a mirror, but a mirror image - determined in all the places that she wasn't, assured in all the things she couldn't be.

'I wished- I needed- to ask-' he started, half forcing that determined almost-confidence and half speaking simply because he desperately _needed_ to, 'What are your... intentions regarding the Empire?'

'My intentions?' Eirn repeated, not getting it - and then, when she finally did, 'Or the Alliance's?'

He didn't respond to that; didn't even squirm, just met her gaze and failed entirely to answer the question. An answer in itself; that he was being careful to examine her every reaction, watching and waiting for her to trip up and reveal some truth she tried to hide even from herself.

'I don't- _hate_ the Empire, Malavai,' she added - deflating, just a little. She didn't; couldn't, no matter how much easier it would have been. It was- it _had_ been - home, or something like it, and a part of her would never stop longing for the days when everything had been simple - when the Republic had been a distant, faceless enemy, when her fights had been with fists and foul language, and the greatest trials she'd faced was her mathematics homework. 

'I just...' she added, trailing off as her gaze flicked away from him, 'Want it to be- a better place,' she sighed, 'Than it wants to be.'

One of the late-night realisations she'd come to on Odessen, lying awake on a bed that would never be hers. The Empire would never change unless it wanted to, and she had neither the support nor the immortality required to make it. The Sith would rather tear themselves apart than remake themselves as something better, and Eirn had no desire to get herself killed failing to prevent it.

'As far as the Alliance is concerned,' Eirn continued, trying to grab for that professionalism that everyone but her seemed able to master, 'We don't want war, with either the Empire _or_ the Republic. But we will defend ourselves, and the territory under our protection.'

He didn't respond to that - at least, not verbally, though he did tense a little at her final statement. He knew as well as she did that the Empire only ever desired to expand its borders - and what that would mean, should it turn its attention to Alliance protected space.

'What about you? What are your- plans?' she added, finally - not a question she enjoyed the thought of in the slightest, but- well, it seemed to be the topic that he'd wanted to talk about, even if that didn't stop him wincing a little at her words. 

'Truthfully, my lord,' he replied, slowly, 'I- my preference would be to- return home, with you at my side. I know that you have always had a... complicated relationship with it, but the Empire is truly poorer without you. Both for the service that you always gave it, and- for my own, selfish, reasons.'

Which wasn't an answer; or was, but not to the question she'd asked. Not to the one he seemed to have wanted her to ask; not one, at that, she wanted to hear. 

'I- if I thought you might- be persuaded,' he added - admitted, just as slowly, 'I admit I would not hesitate to try. But- I know you too well for that, Eihn. You are...' he paused, for a moment, smiling a little to himself, again. 'Singularly stubborn, when you have made up your mind. A quality I admit that I always found as... admirable as it was infuriating.'

Which Eirn wasn't sure wasn't supposed to be some kind of insult, half-dressed up as a compliment. Not that this answered her non-question; not that it reassured her any that she was wrong in her assumptions, either.

'And what about you?' she asked, after a long moment. 'I mean-' she added - scrabbling for words, again, and not managing to find anything but the conviction that she'd only use the wrong ones.

'I- meant what I said,' she managed - babbled, or so it felt, 'Before, about- coming to Odessen. If- you wanted to. I-'

He was watching her - staring at her, and Eirn couldn't help but feel like he was _judging_ her, with it. Acina was dead, and all she could talk about was him leaving the Empire, and the flash of guilt that bubbled up at that thought threatened, for a long moment, to consume her thoughts entirely. 

'-I didn't want anything to- happen like this,' she sighed, her train of thought utterly derailed. 'I don't hate the Empire,' she repeated, looking away from him, finally - she didn't, and couldn't have if she tried.

'You have always cared for the Empire,' Malavai replied, quietly, 'Even at great cost to yourself. Even when the Empire did not care for you. It was- another reason, I suppose, I- expected you would- assist the Empire against the Republic here, despite your- differences with the Empress.'

Which Eirn couldn't help but take as a criticism; which she couldn't stop herself wincing at, not least because of the accusation that it was (that she'd levelled against herself). She did her best to swallow back her immediate defensiveness, though, not least because of how unhelpful it was. (Of how little her actions deserved defending, at that)

'Everything I did here,' she replied, slowly, 'I did- to try and stop war breaking out. Not just for the Empire's sake, but for everyone's. It might not be very _Sith_ , but...' she trailed off, sighing again. 'Is this really all you wanted to talk about, Malavai?' she added, looking back to him. 'The _Empire_?'

It was his turn to wince, in response to that, at her half-spoken accusation. At the reminder of the one thing that had always come between them, even if it was the same thing that had brought them together to begin with.

'No, Eihn,' he replied, though, 'I- wished to- I mean- the Empire was- a part of it, but-I wanted to know, because-' He kept pausing - hesitating, skipping over words he seemed he didn't want to acknowledge, pushing out the ones he did in fits and starts. 'When you were- in hospital, after- Ziost- when I thought I might lose you, I- everything we'd argued about seemed so- and I was- so afraid that you would not wake up, that even if you did, after all of that, I might- that you might- and then-'

And then she'd been arrested, as soon as she'd been able to withstand the Inquisition's lash without immediately relapsing. The Dark Council had wasted no time in attempting to make an example of her - one of the few of Vitiate's servants they'd been able to round up, never mind threaten with execution. Marr's death at Zakuul's hands had been the most hollow kind of vindictive near-retribution; Eirn's biggest regret had been that the Sith hadn't died at her own hands, but at those of the creature she'd been the one accused of serving.

'Come to Odessen,' Eirn just replied - not responding to what he'd said in the slightest, not directly, but her thoughts were too tangled to respond in any other way. ' _Please_ , Malavai. I- know that things with the Empire- aren't good,' she managed - an understatement, and one he had to know the truth of, but- 'And- I know things with us weren't- but all I wanted-' 

The words kept denying her, though - kept refusing to come, kept refusing to make sense, and Eirn blinked, and hated the tears that momentarily blinded her, even as she irritably wiped them away. 'Zakuul- nearly _did_ execute me, and- all I could think about was- how I wouldn't get the chance to- try and fix things. When I- all this time-'

'Eihn,' he started, not letting her finish, 'I-'

'I love you, Malavai,' she managed - blurted, finally, the words she hadn't been able to say before forced out into the open, as awkward here as they'd been when they'd hung between the two of them, unsaid, but- 'I love you, and I've missed you, so much, and- I don't know,' she added, descending into babble, 'What's going to happen with- the Empire, or anything, but I just- want a chance for- _us_ ,' she finished, limply - all but certain, as she did so, that these were only words that she'd end up being made a fool for.

He didn't say anything in response to that, though - just smiled, after a long moment, as her words slowly sunk in. 'I- know, Eihn. And I- love you, too. I-'

He paused again, though - hesitated, glancing away for a moment as his smile faded, and all Eirn could feel in the Force was years of loss and regret - on both their parts.

'Truthfully,' he added, quietly, 'I- left the Empire the day I- defied Moff Lorman's order to- give up, on you. I knew then that- it was an action from which there would be no return, though- I did not expect that it- would be one I would survive. But- you...' he finished - looking back to her, finally.

'I- had to try,' he continued, after another long moment. 'When I was- When I-' he paused - hesitated, again, before plunging on. 'What I am- doing terribly at saying, Eihn, is that- I wanted- I would like- very much, for- another chance,' he managed, 'For- us. On- Odessen,' he added, 'If- that is what it takes.'

Eirn was silent for a moment, after that - stared, as she listened to his ramble, not hearing the words she was expecting him to say and not certain she could believe the ones she was hearing.

'You- you're- sure...?' she just managed - half mumbled, half not daring to believe she'd heard him correctly - half immediately worried that he was only saying what he was because he thought it was what she wanted to hear, and entirely certain that whatever _she_ said, it would be wrong.

'I came- to Iokath- to find you, Eihn. I- admit that things have not- transpired as I hoped they would, but- if I walked away now...' He paused, at that - seemed to consider the idea, and for a numb moment, Eirn was terrified he might _re_ consider - decide that walking away was his best option, and not for the first time, she wished she'd said nothing.

'I made you a promise,' he continued, eventually, 'That I would- find you, no matter what it took. I- failed,' he added, 'In- part because I allowed my own fear to decide my actions. I- will not make that mistake twice. If- you would allow me the chance, I-'

Eirn didn't give him a chance to get any further than that, though - just closed the gap between them, finally, pulling him into as tight a hug as she dared, burying her face in the shoulder of his uniform, and-

(surrounding herself, finally, with _him_ ; the way he smelled, the way he felt against her, the way his worried tension always knotted itself in the Force around her own; the knowledge that whatever happened next, whatever trial she had to face, it wasn't one she'd have to face alone)

'I love you, Malavai,' she just managed - repeated, again, mumbling it into him as though it could somehow bypass sound and impress itself into him through sheer force of will.

For a moment, he tensed - and she did, too, a sort of terrified unsureness gripping her (the conviction, for that moment, that she _had_ misheard, and badly) - and then it passed, as he returned the gesture; looped his own arms around her, his hands holding onto her robes as though she'd disappear if he let go, nuzzling her hairline and murmuring something inaudible as they clung to each other for the first time in what felt like whole lifetimes. (His heart, pounding in his chest, as worried and relieved as hers was; his breath, as unsteadily half-uncontrolled as she)

'I know,' he murmured, though; his own breath shuddering, for a moment, as he attempted to control his breathing - and failed, just as she was. 'I love you, too, Eihn.'

Which was, for now, all that needed to be said.


	15. Chapter 15

The Empire kept to its word, departing with its wounded and fallen, and leaving behind the kind of silence that Eirn knew promised nothing pleasant. It would be filled soon enough, she knew, with declarations of mourning and of vengeance far surpassing her own, that Acina's vengeance would rival that of any Sith's, and not out of any love the Empire had for its once-Empress. For all that the Dark Council had once scrambled to distance itself from Vitiate, at least in name, his legacy was still stamped across the Sith more indelibly than his own children. There was some unpleasant irony, Eirn couldn't help but reflect, that the Sith - rejected and scorned as _failures_ by their Emperor \- were far more attentive, loyal students of his methods than the Empire he had favoured were.

(She hated herself for it, but had to know; found him in the galley, dressed in an Alliance jumpsuit and looking uncertainly out of the transparisteel windows at the starfield that had recently contained his countrymen. _Their_ countrymen; and when Eirn took his hand in hers, it took a moment that lasted far too long for him to return the gesture)

'I'm- grateful, Malavai,' she started, absent-mindedly - before pausing awkwardly, as she realised she'd spoken out loud. 'That- you're here. For- everything. I know that- it wasn't an easy decision for you, that- things- won't be easy, but-'

'I suspect,' he replied and didn't-reply, half speaking to himself and entirely distracted by the empty space outside the window, 'There are still many things we need to talk about.'

'There are,' she replied, eventually. Many, many things.

-

The days that followed passed in a blur of aimless existence within the Gravestone's confines, punctuated by medicated sleep interspersed with more-than-conversation, the six years of absence that both of them still felt making itself known in the things that made it feel as though they were almost strangers, once more; the new scars they both wore, both physical and otherwise - the places that they hadn't been, the words they hadn't said, and all the things that could never hope to replace those lost opportunities.

The Republic offered up a Jedi, as its sacrificial lamb; one of the ones who'd been standing guard at Acina's doorway, dead by his own hand - to all appearances, anyway, though Eirn was instantly sceptical. There would be no closure here - no answers gained, no vengeance sated. It was all Eirn could do not to refute the assertions on principle - to wonder what larger game was being played, even as she was told repeatedly that this had been an act of opportunity, one Jedi lashing out against a defenceless Sith in a moment of uncharacteristic passion.

(It fit with what she knew of Jedi, and it didn't; with the single-minded hatred of all things Sith she'd grown up _knowing_ that Jedi nursed, with the fear that had gnawed at her every time her parents had gone off on some dig or another while the war raged - with the hatred she'd felt from Awenyth even as Adasta burned, with the wariness that even now the Jedi among the Alliance's numbers glanced at Eirn with when they thought she wasn't looking)

She lit a black candle for Acina, though, and found a calm in meditating on its flame that had eluded her for-

(days? weeks? calm was not a state that Sith held dear, but it was the only thing that let Eirn focus; the only thing that let her sleep, the only thing that let her _be_ )

_Vengear ts'ona_ , she repeated, to herself, and wondered if it was even still Acina she was avenging.

-

Aemilia arrived in her own ship a few days after the Empire departed (a few days after negotiations with the Republic had begun in earnest, things that Eirn was more than happy to leave to others better suited to them). She was there at Eirn's request, and invitation - the idea occurring to Eirn between bouts of frustration with communications with Iokath. Aemilia, after all, understood technology far better than Eirn did - understood the Force, the _Republic_ , better than Eirn did, at least in Eirn's own opinion. Iokath might have recognised Eirn as leading the Alliance - but that didn't mean that Eirn couldn't delegate, and Aemilia - for all she was a Jedi - was one of the few Eirn trusted to agree with her objections to weaponising it.

Malavai, on seeing the Jedi, both instantly recognised her and instantly disapproved. Aemilia, true to form, was impervious to that disapproval - the one ray of indomitable sunshine on the frequently gloomy Gravestone. That they bumped into each other in the galley didn't help; that just meant there witnesses, with all the accompanying judgements.

'Mr. Illte-Quinn,' the Jedi started - not using his former rank, and Eirn couldn't tell if that was a snub, or an attempt at avoiding insult. 'I'm glad to see you are well.'

'Doctor Myrric,' he just replied, as coldly - as _politely_ \- as he could make himself. 'And I, you. I suppose,' he mused, 'I shouldn't be surprised you are still working with Agent Shan.'

There was an insult buried in there, somewhere, but Aemilia just smiled her gentle, sunny, smile. 

'I go where I am needed,' she just replied - ever the Jedi, 'Wherever that happens to be.'

(The sun, of course, could also burn and bleach, stripping away all illusion and casting out all shadow - was as much an enemy as not, a lesson Eirn had once learned and never forgotten, but which seemed all the more acutely relevant, in that moment)

-

The five of them - Lana, Theron, Aemilia, Koth, and Eirn - found time to sit down around one of the Gravestone's tables; had to make time, between the Republic negotiations and introducing Aemilia to Iokath, but it was time Lana insisted would be well spent. Eirn had never met a Sith as fond of bureaucracy as Lana could be; wondered sometimes if the older Sith hadn't missed her calling - or worse, found it.

'Things with the Republic are going smoothly, now that Acina's killer is dealt with. Of course, this just means they're pushing for weapons tech,' Theron was saying, 'But that's all the more reason to get the security systems back online. And- no offence,' he added, glancing at Eirn, 'But-'

'None taken,' Eirn shrugged; she wasn't technologically-minded, and never had been. There were some things she had forced herself to master through sheer bullheadedness, but- well, Iokath's systems were beyond even her stubbornness's abilities.

'There's- another reason it's fortunate I was able to come,' Aemilia just replied - her way, Eirn immediately suspected, of avoiding _the Force wants me to be here_. Not out of any lack of belief on the Jedi's part - but the protracted arguments Eirn remembered having (and overhearing) while they'd been trapped in each other's close proximity in that tin hut on Rishi.

'We've got a problem,' the Jedi added, 'And it's one I'd prefer not to discuss over holo.'

'A problem?' Lana replied - instantly on edge, if only for the faith that Aemilia usually had in the security of her tech. 'What sort of problem?'

'I had a call from my brother, on business,' Aemilia sighed, that sunshine clouding over, just a little. 'Someone got his attention trying to sell Alliance secrets through Nowhere. They up and vanished before he could track them down, but...'

Aemilia's brother, Eirn vaguely remembered, was involved somehow in parts of the galactic underworld - moved in similar circles to Hylo, though not the same ones. His own business ventures had remained unaffiliated with the Alliance, for the most part \- Eirn didn't know the details and didn't care to, and until now, that hadn't been a problem.

'What do you mean,' Lana started, 'Alliance _secrets_?'

'Intelligence,' Aemilia replied, 'Not technology. Certainly nothing pertaining to Iokath or the Fleet. But that doesn't make it any less concerning.'

'What kind of intelligence?' Theron was just as wary - just as worried, just as tense, not least because if someone was selling the Alliance out- well, preventing just that was a good part of his job description.

'Here,' Aemilia just replied, retrieving a data chip from one of the pouches on her belt, 'I've got a recording of the call with Bes, and the data he sent me. He's promised to investigate from his end, but he thinks the seller was spooked by something. They went to ground almost as soon as they'd caught his attention.'

'So- wait,' Koth started, turning this over in his head. 'Why didn't Hylo hear anything about this? I mean, she's got _connections_ too, right?'

'Bes and Hylo have different networks,' Aemilia replied, not missing a beat. 'Anyone in the Alliance would know that connections to Hylo are connections to us. But- they may not know the same almost applies to Nowhere, as well. In this instance,' she added, 'It's worked in our favour, but...'

'That doesn't mean whoever this was- isn't trying their luck elsewhere, and we just don't know about it,' Koth finished. 'As if we didn't have enough to deal with.'

'What about Major Quinn?' Theron started - his gaze instantly flicking to Eirn, who'd been enjoying the part of this conversation where she wasn't the focus, and could simply nurse her caf in silence. 'He was remarkably quick to give himself up to Alliance custody.'

Eirn couldn't help but take that question personally, of course, not least because of the fact that she was the reason Quinn was with the Alliance. Her weakness - her relationship, her love, her short-sightedness, her blindness, her trust, her foolishness, her- _fault_.

'If- he's here- as a spy,' Eirn started, slightly defensively - not liking the possibility at all, especially given the accusations it made of her, as well, 'He'd be- sending intelligence to the Empire, not- trying to sell it to the _Republic_.'

Which came out as much an insult as it was anything else - her own ingrained distrust and dislike of the ancient enemy of the Sith, but also at the idea that someone like Malavai (that _Malavai_ ) would pass it Alliance intelligence. 

'Still,' Theron added, 'We should keep a close eye on him. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd been deliberately sent to Iokath in the first place.'

Which was another series of accusations all by itself, and Eirn couldn't help but bristle defensively at all of them - especially the ones aimed at her, and the blind spot that she wanted, desperately, to have when it came to him. Malavai's loyalty to the Empire had always been unshakeable - had always _seemed_ unshakeable, but-

'Unless the Major was in contact with the Alliance before this,' Aemilia started, 'He would not have been able to secure the kind of data Bes found. And even if he was,' she added, 'Then that would not change the fact we have someone _else_ willing to compromise our operations for money.'

A defence, of a sort, from a Jedi. Eirn was simultaneously grateful to her for it, and embarrassed that she hadn't been the one to make it - and certain, either way, that his character being defended by a _Jedi_ was not something Malavai would take as a compliment.

'Agreed. We'll need to keep an eye on Major Quinn,' Lana began (and Eirn tried not to wince, again, at the half-spoken accusations), 'But this warrants further investigation. Given everything else we've encountered here,' she added, sighing, 'It seems as though we still have our work cut out.'

-

When the handover of Iokath was complete, though, and with the negotiations underway, Eirn saw no reason for her or her lightsaber to remain on Odessen - made every excuse to go- home, as much as a part of her actually _flinched_ when she realised she'd reflexively thought of Odessen that way. (Wasn't it, though? Her friends, her family, her _life_ \- were all there, and the thought that it might some day crumble wasn't one that sat well)

Walking out of the spaceport's gates, though, into the fresh air and sunshine of the Odessen greens, felt like a weight lifting from her shoulders in a way that nothing had since- well, since her periodic returns to Ziost, a thought that prompted a brief pang of guilt. Mostly, though, all she felt was relief at being among friends and allies - being away from the front of a war she wanted nothing to do with, and out of the constant path of enemies she had no desire to fight.

(Malavai was glancing around with something approaching furtive disapproval - at the Jedi, at the Republic script on the signage alongside Imperial and Zakuulan, at the Alliance uniforms on every guard and emblems on every flag)

'Welcome to Odessen,' she started, linking her arm with his, and not reassured until he relaxed into the gesture - returning it awkwardly, yes, but no more so than he always had. 'It- might take some getting used to, but...'

'I- admit,' he replied, slowly - more than a little uncertainly, 'It's- not quite what I expected.'

'It rains less here, than it does on Kaas,' Eirn replied, smiling - though the rain had never been her main complaint. Insult added to injury, perhaps, but never the wound itself.

'In that case,' he sighed, 'It's just as well I didn't bring my umbrella.'

-

There was an introduction that needed to be made, too; one years overdue, at least by Eirn's estimation. It was also one to be made far sooner than Eirn might have liked, if only because Anya was outside the spaceport herself - on her way in, a survey bag over one shoulder and her blaster under the other - and made a beeline for Eirn as soon as they were spotted.

'Eir! Koth said you were on your way back. How was Iokath? And-' Anya paused abruptly, though, when she looked at Malavai, who was looking at Anya, in turn, with an expression of mystified half-recognition. 'Is- this-?'

Which didn't make Eirn feel any better about this in the slightest - any less trapped, any less stupid - but fate had called her bluff, and all Eirn could do about it was be grateful she never played sabacc.

'Anya, this is- my husband. Malavai. Malavai,' she added, not any more confident about this than she had been to begin with, 'This is- my little sister, Arlanya.'

Malavai offered her a bow - slight, but still respectful, a terse Imperial greeting that spoke as much of his desire to throw up walls as to refrain from causing offence. 'My lord,' he managed - as much nervous as he was unsettled.

(Eirn immediately winced; immediately wanted to retreat into herself, to redo this from the top, if only because it might mean being able to avoid this encounter until she could set the stage herself)

'Just- Anya is fine,' Anya gushed nervously, offering him a hand to shake, and not letting it drop until he'd accepted it. 'Since, uh. I- was never really a Sith- like Eir. Besides, you're family,' she added - no less awkwardly than the rest of her sentence, especially since Malavai had started looking at her with an air of distinct disapproval.

Not that this stopped unsettling him any - his handshake was as stiff and uncertain as the rest of him. 'Anya, then,' he replied, still a little uncertainly. 'It's... a pleasure to meet you.'

Polite formalities that Eirn couldn't help but wince at, even if this introduction was still more than life would have afforded them otherwise. Even if it was one that Eirn had wished for, on her wedding day, to introduce him to the parts of her family both treasured and thought lost. 

'If _someone_ had warned me you were coming,' Anya replied, throwing Eirn a playful glare, 'We could have- gotten caf or something,' she added, 'But I'm already running late, and-'

'Another time, perhaps,' he replied, managing a faint but unconvincing smile - a polite facade that Eirn knew Anya could see right through (that she knew she was going to have to deal with, later - for both their parts), but which her sister seemed more inclined than not to accept - at least, for now.

-

When he looked at her, after Anya had gone, Eirn couldn't help but wince at the disapproval that she knew was being directed at least in part at _her_. She hadn't said anything - to either of them, had chewed on it endlessly nervously but never dragged the words together and let circumstance do the talking for her. 

'She's a deserter.' He got to the point, at least - frowning, all the while, as though Anya were the only Imperial deserter on Odessen (as though realising, finally, that even those here whose philosophies he approved of would still have turned their backs on the Empire - and on the Sith).

'So are we,' Eirn replied - an attempt at tart dismissiveness that fell rather flat. 'She is,' she added - sighing, slightly dramatically. There was no denying it - Anya had deserted the Empire, and Eirn- well, she was little better. 'She's my _sister_ , Malavai. I...'

'I remember how distressed you were,' he sighed - relenting, just the tiniest amount. He still disapproved - that much was clear, though it was difficult to tell of _what_. Of Anya; of Odessen, of Eirn's reasons for being here.

'If it helps,' Eirn added, 'We- fought about it. A lot. When she- when I met her, here. I was- angry,' she finished, sighing to herself. 'But...'

'She's your little sister,' he finished - repeated, as he studied her, _scrutinised_ her. It was never a pleasant feeling, even from him - even if he seemed to be making an attempt to understand more than to criticise (even if she wondered immediately if that wasn't her own wishful thinking, getting in the way of both of them again).

'She is,' Eirn replied, smiling. 'I- don't expect you to be- best friends with her. But-'

'If you were to return to the Empire,' he added, slowly, 'It would mean- losing her, again.'

An idea Eirn had realised long ago she couldn't handle, and not just because of how small her family had abruptly become. She still had living relatives on Kaas - and Korriban, for that matter, but none of them were the little sister she'd grown up simultaneously resenting and envying and, in her own way, attempting to protect. (had half blamed herself for the loss of; had wallowed in regret, over things said - things left unsaid, and had been as angry with herself for not realising the truth as she had been with Anya for leaving)

'She's- not the only reason I- don't want to go back,' Eirn replied, sighing. 'But- she's a big one. Or. A little one,' she mused, smiling a little at her own poorly timed humour.

'Family is important to you,' he replied, just as slowly as before. 'I understand that, Eihn. I simply-' He paused, at that, before sighing, words apparently failing him, too.

'It is,' Eirn smiled. 'But that includes you, Malavai. Or- at least,' she added, immediately worried she'd barrelled over some line he wasn't comfortable with, 'I- like to think it does.'

Which made him smile, finally, if only just a little. 'I- like to think so as well, Eihn,' he replied. 'I simply...'

'I'm sorry,' Eirn sighed, 'I should have- said something. I was going to, I just- couldn't figure out how, and- I'm sorry,' she repeated, sighing to herself again.

Malavai, though, was just continuing to frown to himself. 'Is there anyone else I should know about?'

'Well,' Eirn started \- hesitating, at the way he tensed at her own hesitant tension, before grabbing at the words to go on. 'Vette is- around here, somewhere. And you've already seen- Lana and Theron.' And Aemilia, at that, though there'd been little love lost between him and the Republic contingent of their operation on Rishi. 

The rest of her crew, though - the rest of their mutual acquaintances, as far as she knew - were absent, or lost. Pierce, according to Lana, had been last seen off on some Imperial special operations mission deep in Republic territory some years back, Broonmark had vanished without a trace, and Jaesa was just as untraceable. 

Malavai just nodded, though - and took a deep breath, glancing around the open greens as though looking for something before finally looking back Eirn. 'I see.'

'Maybe we should,' she added, before the conversation could slip any further downhill, 'Get something to eat. And then I can- show you around, if you like-?'

-

Lana and Theron's continuing presence on Iokath for the negotiations didn't mean an end to Council briefings, of course; just meant that the two of them, along with Koth, were present in holo form rather than in the flesh. It was a fact that Eirn found herself resenting, just a little, if only for how comparatively difficult it made reading them - the Force did not lend itself to long-distance reads, and both Shan and Beniko were more than practiced at controlling their body language. 

'We've received a communication from Aristocra Saganu of the Chiss Ascendancy. Off the record, for now, but they're inviting us to Copero to discuss a possible alliance.' Which was exactly the sort of bombshell that Lana would drop with little warning - especially given the larger implications.

'Aren't the Chiss allied with the _Empire_?' Aygo was immediately sceptical - and Eirn couldn't blame him, either. The two of them had never seen eye to eye - unsurprising, given the position he'd once held in the Republic - but Aygo's bone-deep mistrust of all things Imperial was not, for once, at odds with Eirn's own assessments.

'For the time being,' Lana replied, not backing down. 'But the Aristocra has indicated that certain factions among the Chiss support aligning with the Alliance instead.'

'The Chiss are the Empire's oldest allies,' Eirn started, slowly - turning this over in her head, and less thrilled by it the more she thought about it. 'If they break things off with Kaas-'

'The Empire will be gunning for both of us,' Theron finished, before she could get there. 'Which is probably why this is off the record. Still, it can't hurt to be polite.'

Not that the Empire needed much more of an excuse to lash out at Odessen. Eirn was quite certain it was only their relationship with Zakuul that had kept the Sith from striking at them - that, and whatever power struggles had been occupying Kaas. Acina's throne was still empty - out of respect for her, the official line went, though Eirn knew as well as any Sith that wasn't the whole truth. 

'Copero, huh,' Hylo drawled - making a show of leaning back in her chair as she turned the idea over. 'Don't get a lot of opportunity to see the Chiss worlds. So, is this a full diplomatic party, or...?'

'Since this is an unofficial invitation,' Lana started, 'They've only extended it to a select few personnel. Theron has already agreed to accompany me, and the Aristocra expressed particular interest in meeting Commander Illte.'

_Illte-Quinn_ , Eirn corrected, silently. Not that people listened, even when she told them; Quinn was an Imperial name, and Sith did not double-barrel theirs. Which was why she had, of course, but good luck making anyone understand that.

'Sure,' Eirn replied though, slightly absently; it would be a break from Odessen, and she wondered, at that, if she could - if she _should_ \- invite Malavai to join them. Things had... not been easy, but- perhaps a change of scenery, some time away for _them_ , would do them good. 

( _To steal the Empire's oldest ally from out under their nose? Oh, he'll love that-_ _Right, because leaving him in the dark on this would be such a better idea-_ )

'What,' she murmured, half to herself, 'Could possibly go wrong?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM DONe hERE GOODBYE
> 
> i mean thank you for reading holy shit i finished a thing
> 
> this took like five months longer than i thought it would OOPS  
> all i wanted was for elara and eirn to have one (1) conversation. i think i managed that? sort of? they need to have more conversations, though. elara would not approve of eirn's taste in men but literally nobody does so she's in good company there
> 
> i like to think they would get along, eventually, if eirn ever stops jamming her foot down her throat. 
> 
> ANYWAY i am not intending to fic the rest of the fractured alliances arc not least because the work i want to do to make the writing not suck would require rewriting basically all of kotet before it in order to actually introduce and build up the issues and villains in a convincing manner instead of just having everything come haring in from the left field and calling it good, and honestly i'd rather not
> 
> but that doesn't mean i won't fall victim to my own stupid au and write oneshots and shorts that will be posted on ao3 and/or tumblr (badsithnocookie.tumblr.com)
> 
> as for what's next well i have those two monstrous quinn/sw wips that are in need of updates as well as a whole host of ideas of Other Shit that i will likely never get around to
> 
> THANK YOU to everyone who read/commented/kudos'd/liked/reblogged/shared/bookmarked/subscribed i love you all kiss kiss


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